WINDFALLS 
OF   OBSERVATION 


WINDFALLS 
OF    OBSERVATION 


GATHERED    FOR 

THE    EDIFICATION   OF  THE   YOUNG 

AND   THE 

SOLACE   OF  OTHERS 


BY 

EDWARD    SANDFORD    MARTIN 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1893 


COPYRIGHT,  1893,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  Horse     ...    ..........       I 

II.  Climate  ............     i$ 

III.  Courtship   ...........     25 

IV.  Marriage  and  Divorce      ......     49 

V.  College  ............     65 

VI.  The  Tyranny  of  Things   ......     89 

VII.  Wills  and  Heirs  .........  107 

VIII.  The  Travel  Habit    ........  117 

IX.  Newspapers  and  People  "  ......  133 

X.  The  Mysteries  of  Life  .......  147 

XI.  Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones      .     .     .   165 
XII.  A  Serious  Time  of  Life     ......  181 

XIII.  The  Question  of  an  Occupation     .     .     .193 

XIV.  Women  and  Families  .......  213 

XV.  As  to  Death    ..........  229 

XVI.  Inclinations  and  Character    .....  237 


225826 


vi  Contents 


PAGE 

XVII.  A  Poet  and  Not  Ashamed 249 

XVIII.  Some  Christmas  Sentiments  ....  261 

XIX.  Feathers  of  Lost  Birds 275 

XX.  Outrageous  Fortune 283 

XXI.  Certain  Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace  295 


HORSE 


HORSE 

PEAKING  for  the  State  of  /*  '** 
New  York  and  contiguous 
vicinities,  it  is  perfectly  safe 
to  say  that  if  there  were  six 
weeks  that  could  be  spared 
out  of  the  year  without  doing  it  any 
harm,  they  would  be  the  six  weeks  be 
ginning  on  the  first  Monday  in  March. 
They  make  us  a  lenten  quarantine  that 
we  have  to  keep  whether  we  like  it  or 
not.  The  real,  true  spring  and  May 
day  are  put  upon  the  market  in  these 
latitudes  at  about  the  same  time.  Spring 
threatens  sporadically  and  intermittently 
as  early  as  the  middle  of  April,  but  so 
long  as  it  yields  two  sprigs  of  pneumonia 
to  one  of  arbutus  it  is  hardly  worth  talk 
ing  about  as  spring.  When  base-ball  be 
comes  a  marketable  sport,  and  one's  flan 
nels  have  been  oppressive  three  days 
running,  then  we  may  begin  to  believe 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


that  there  really  is  a  spring  and  that  we 
are  in  it. 
a  young  it  has  been  said  by  a  favorite  author 

marts  fancy  J 

that  at  this  time  of  year  a  young  man's 
fancy  turns  to  thoughts  of  love.  That 
may  have  been  so  in  other  climes  and 
times,  but  contemporary  observation 
hereabouts  persuades  the  observer  that 
what  our  young  men's  fancies  turn  to  in 
May,  and  as  much  as  to  anything  else, 
is  horse.  When  the  town  begins  to 
warm,  and  the  mud  is  known  to  have 
dried  on  the  country  roads,  the  desire 
to  go  on  or  after  a  quadruped  begins  to 
wrestle  in  many  minds  with  the  other 
reasonable  desires  that  cost  money,  and 
in  a  certain  percentage  of  minds,  every 
year,  horse  prevails. 

A  lover,  even  a  successful  one,  is  an 
affecting  sight  to  any  one  with  due  ap 
preciation  of  the  chances  he  is  taking  ; 
but  only  to  a  man  who  is  ignorant  of  the 
possibilities  of  horse-flesh,  is  a  lover  half 
so  affecting  as  a  young  man  who  is  buy 
ing  his  first  horse.  There  is  so  much 
that  he  does  not  know,  and  it  will  cost 
him  such  a  pretty  penny  to  learn  it  ! 

4 


Horse 

Still,  though  a  little  knowledge  of 
horse  is  a  dangerously  expensive  thing, 
if  one  can  afford  to  acquire  it,  it  is  a 
-knowledge  that  has  only  one  superior  in 
its  power  to  add  to  one's  intelligent  in 
terest  in  life.  The  noblest  study  of 
mankind  is  man,  as  heretofore  ;  but  the 
study  of  horse  is  gloriously  supplement 
ary  thereto.  It  is  worth  a  reasonable 
bit  out  of  one's  surplus  in  the  glad,  hope 
ful  spring,  to  get  in  the  way  of  learning 
how  many  things  a  horse  may  have  the 
matter  with  him  and  still  be  able  to 
get  about.  There  are  so  very  many  of 
them  !  more  than  even  with  the  worst  turns  to 
luck  the  beginner  can  hope  to  learn  in 
one  season,  for  a  single  horse  does  not 
have  them  all  ;  certainly  not  in  any  one 
summer.  A  horse's  blemishes  are  like 
virtues,  in  that  they  have  to  be  devel 
oped  ;  but  the  beginner  may  assure  him 
self  that  the  less  he  knows  about  horse 
the  more  blemishes  he  will  be  able  to 
develop,  so  that  his  ignorance  and  his 
opportunities  of  curing  it  will  go  hand 
in  hand.  Craniology  is  a  very  interest 
ing  study,  but  the  bumps  on  your  head 

5 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


come  ready-made,  or  grow  out  so  very 
slowly  that  you  cannot  note  their  prog 
ress.  With  the  bumps  on  a  horse's  legs 
it  is  different.  If  the  horse  is  youn^ 
enough,  and  the  country  is  hilly,  or  the 
carriage  heavy,  or  if  your  notions  of 
driving  or  riding  are  a  little  crude,  a 
notable  lot  of  knobs  will  sometimes  ac 
cumulate  on  a  set  of  legs  almost  while 
you  are  looking.  It  is  as  interesting  to 
watch  them  as  it  is  to  see  the  seeds  come 
up  in  the  garden  after  a  warm  rain. 

Collectors  There  have  been  men  who  have  held 
that  there  was  a  greater  measure  of  pure 
felicity  in  being  a  collector  than  in  ad 
diction  to  horse.  The  collector's  hobby 
has  two  excellent  qualities  :  It  is  im 
mensely  entertaining  and  it  is  compara 
tively  innocent.  It  tempts  men  to  ex 
travagance,  no  doubt,  but  if  they  buy 
wisely  they  get  their  money  back  when 
they  sell.  It  gives  no  man  headaches 
in  the  morning  ;  nor  does  it  seriously 
interfere  with  the  peace  of  families,  so 
that  it  is  more  tolerable  than  rum  or 
flirtation.  It  is  a  less  hazardous  pleas- 
6 


Horse 

lire,  too,  than  horse,  which  sometimes 
inveigles  men  into  saddles  to  the  peril 
of  necks,  and  which  usually,  if  pursued 
«with  due  zeal,  usurps  their  faculties  to 
a  degree  that  is  detrimental  to  the  in 
terests  of  society.  Collectors  are  usu 
ally  more  interested  in  their  treasures 
than  in  anything  else  on  earth,  but  it 
must  be  said  for  .them  that  the  very 
depth  of  their  passion  usually  operates 
to  give  it  modesty.  They  are  not  more 
apt  to  prate  endlessly  in  mixed  society 
about  their  havings  than  a  lover  is  to 
talk  about  his  sweetheart.  The  con 
sciousness  of  possession  is  ordinarily 
enough  for  them,  though,  of  course, 
when  they  get  among  persons  whose 
sympathy  they  know  is  with  them,  con 
versation  takes  its  natural  course. 

There  is  a  reasonable  fraction  of  hu-  notsoj,ad 
man  sentiment  left  in  most  collectors,  as 
but  the  man  whose  hobby  is  horse  has  a 
very  limited  claim  to  rank  as  a  biped. 
Books  and  pictures  and  jades  and  "  solid 
colors,"  when  once  you  have  got  them, 
stay   calmly   where    they   are   put   and 
leave  their  owners  some  peace.     Not  so 

7 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


the  horse.  Nothing  compares  with  him 
for  intrusiveness  except  babies.  He  is 
constantly  up  to  some  devilment,  devel 
oping  possibilities  or  impossibilities,  get-, 
ting  colds,  ringbones,  spavins,  nails  in 
his  feet,  strains,  curbs,  galls,  scratches, 
navicular  disease,  corns,  lung  difficul 
ties,  heaves,  and  unascertained  worth- 
lessness.  Every  detriment  that  shows 
in  him  shows  immediately  in  his  owner, 
whose  mind  is  temporarily  unfit  for  the 
consideration  of  anything  else.  The 
horse  en-  collector  can  take  his  first  editions  out 
and  dust  them  and  put  them  back  on 
the  shelf,  and  go  out  and  talk  about  sil 
ver-coinage  ;  but  a  man  who  has  horse 
seldom  comes  out  of  his  stable  without 
the  preoccupied  air,  which  is  the  ex 
ternal  sign  of  internal  worry.  Laws 
designed  for  the  protection  of  society, 
provide,  with  more  or  less  success,  that 
men  shall  have  but  one  wife  each,  at  a 
time.  But  strangely  enough,  the  num 
ber  of  horses  a  man  may  possess  is  left 
unlimited,  except  by  his  purse  and  his 
preferences,  so  that  any  citizen  is  at 
liberty  to  own  as  many  as  he  can  main- 
8 


Horse 

tain,  and  go  about  with  dimmed  and 
distorted  faculties,  to  prey  upon  the  pa 
tience  of  his  fellow-men. 

If  there  were  no  other  drawback  to 
the  horse  habit,  a  respectable  argument 
(albeit  not  a  strictly  valid  one)  could  be 
reared  against  it  on  the  ground  that  it 
necessitates  the  continued  existence  of 
horse  -  dealers.  Now  the  business  of  Hazards 
horse-dealing,  an  avocation  of  large  and  "/th™ 
increasing  importance,  is  yet  of  such  £S?r* 
peculiar  characteristics  as  to  be  dis 
tinctly  hazardous  to  the  reputation  of 
people  who  take  it  up.  That  there  are 
and  always  have  been  honest  horse- 
dealers  it  is  absurd  to  doubt,  but  the 
immemorial  experience  of  mankind  in 
buying  horses  is  such  that  demonstrated 
examples  of  absolute  integrity  in  selling 
them  excite  very  much  the  saine  sort  of 
admiration  as  white  plumage  on  black 
birds.  Of  course  there  is  a  dearth  of 
absolutely  honest  men  anyway,  but  the 
reputed  scarcity  of  honest  horse-dealers 
cannot  be  entirely  due  to  that.  There 
are  dishonest  grocers,  but  it  cannot  be 

9 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


said  that  the  grocery  business  is  disrep 
utable.  Such  a  statement  is  hardly  jus 
tifiable  even  of  the  business  of  dealing 
in  stocks,  and  if  it  can  be  made  of  horse- 
selling  there  must  be  special  reasons  for 
it. 

There  are  such  reasons,  and  very  good 
ones.  They  consist  largely  in  the  cir 
cumstance  that  two  extremely  uncer 
tain  quantities  enter  into  every  sale  of 
horses.  One  of  these  is  the  horse,  the 
other  is  the  purchaser.  From  the  day 
he  is  foaled  to  the  day  his  hoofs  go  to 
the  glue-factory,  every  horse  is,  in  a  con 
siderable  measure,  a  matter  of  opinion. 
There  is  no  absolute  certainty  what  he 
will  do  until  he  has  done  it,  and  then 
there  is  no  absolute  certainty  what  he 
will  do  next  time.  A  man  under  opti 
mistic  influences  may  see  a  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  value  in  a  horse,  and 
sell  him  next  day  in  a  pessimistic  mood 
for  three  hundred,  and  all  without  any 
variation  in  the  animal  or  in  the  state 
of  the  market,  or  anything  else  except 
the  owner's  feelings.  A  horse-dealer  of 
the  sincerest  integrity  may  sell  for  a 
10 


Horse 

large  sum  a  horse  which  gave  every  in 
dication  of  value.  Within  a  week  or  a 
month  the  horse  may  develop  an  incur 
able  ailment  which  makes  him  worth 
less.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  the  inex 
perienced  purchaser  believes  that  the 
dealer  cheated  him,  and  an  upright  man 
endures  the  imputation  of  being  dishon 
est  as  a  penalty  for  dealing  in  wares  that 
are  subject  to  sudden  fluctuations  of 
value.  Of  course,  the  temptations  of 
horse-dealing  are  enormously  increased 
by  this  liability  of  seemingly  sound 
horses  to  go  suddenly  and  unreasonably 
wrong.  Of  course,  too,  a  good  many 
dealers  yield  in  greater  or  less  measure 
to  the  stress  of  these  temptations. 
Thus  one  reason  why  the  reputation  of 
the  business  is  so  doubtful  is  that  so 
many  men  who  go  into  it  too  readily 
convince  themselves  that  caveat  emptor 
applies  as  properly  to  the  vendor's  rep 
resentations  as  to  the  wares.  But  an 
other  reason  is  that  it  is  so  difficult  for 
even  a  very  Bayard  of  horse-dealers  to 
avoid  the  imputation  of  cheating  which 
he  did  not  do. 

ii 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


But  that  the  reputations  of  honest 
men  are  apt  to  be  impaired  in  horse- 
dealing  is  really  not  the  fault  of  the 
horse  so  much  as  of  the  other  variable 
quantity,  the  purchaser.  Horses  are 
subject  to  preventable  as  well  as  un 
foreseen  detriment.  The  more  valuable 
they  are,  the  easier  it  is  to  ruin  them 
by  misuse  or  neglect.  The  dispositions 
and  habits  of  horses,  particularly  of 
young  horses,  may  easily  be  spoiled  in 
a  very  little  while  by  the  ignorance  or 
spitefulness  of  grooms.  The  average 
horse-buyer  knows  little  about  horses, 
and  less  about  grooms.  If  he  pays  a 
fair  sum  for  a  horse,  and  the  animal 
goes  lame  or  grows  vicious,  he  is  apt  to 
assume  and  to  proclaim  that  he  has 
been  cheated.  Whereas  the  mischief 
may  have  been  wholly  unforeseen  by  the 
seller,  or  may  all  have  been  done  in  the 
buyer's  own  stable,  of  the  workings  of 
which  he  has  about  as  much  practical 
knowledge  as  contemporary  scientists 
have  of  home  life  on  the  planet  Mars. 
Inasmuch  as  the  horse  -  dealer's  busi 
ness  reputation  rests  very  largely  on  the 

12 


Horse 

buyer's  testimony,  it  is  evident  that  the 
honest  dealer  who  values  his  fair  fame 
has  got  to  be  almost  as  careful  to  whom 
he  sells  as  what  he  sells. 

Thus  we  see  what  an  extra-hazardous 
occupation  horse-dealing  is,  and  how 
many  reasons  careful  men  can  find  for 
keeping  out  of  it.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  men  never  do  keep  out  of  the  haz 
ardous  occupations.  There  is  a  recog 
nized  charm  about  uncertainties,  and 
they  are  never  more  alluring  than  when 
they  go  on  four  legs,  and  haul  carts,  or 
jump  fences.  Men  not  only  sell  horses 
in  increasing  numbers  for  profit,  but 
they  dabble  in  the  business  out  of  sheer 
love  of  adventure  and  horse,  and  sell 
quadrupeds  to  friend  or  foe,  reckless  of 
the  fact  that  every  beast  that  passes 
through  their  hands  is  a  hostage  given 
to  society.  Such  men  are  the  chief  in 
stigators  of  horse-shows,  which  are  use 
ful  in  stimulating  trade,  and  giving  them 
a  chance  to  show  their  stock,  and,  above 
and  beyond  that,  in  educating  buyers  so 
that  they  shall  not  only  desire  good 
horses,  but  shall  know  them,  and  know 

13 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


what  to  do  with  them  after  they  are 
bought.  In  the  improvement  of  the 
horse  and  the  education  of  the  buyer 
lies  the  honest  horse  -  dealer's  hope. 
When  sound  horses  stay  sound  after 
they  are  sold,  and  buyers  learn  what 
they  may  and  what  they  may  not  expect, 
virtue  in  the  horse  business  will  be  surer 
of  its  reward,  and  honesty  will  seem 
more  like  a  policy  and  less  like  a  quix 
otic  whim. 


II 

CLIMATE 


CLIMATE 

CORRESPONDENT  who 
lately  wrote  in  rather  a  pes 
simistic  vein  from  Los  An 
geles,  averred  that  the  mo 
notony  of  the  climate  there 
was  a  depressing  influence.  There  was 
not  difference  enough  between  the  sea 
sons,  she  said,  to  give  to  life  that  varie 
gated  flavor  which  is  so  acceptable,  and 
goes  so  far  to  prevent  the  soul's  palate 
from  being  jaded.  When  the  corre 
spondent's  letter  had  been  printed  and 
found  its  way  back  whence  it  came,  the 
local  journals  immediately  denied  all  in 
it  that  was  disparaging,  and  explained 
that  the  writer  took  sad  views  of  life 
because  of  disappointment  in  a  trans 
action  in  corner-lots.  Whether  South 
ern  California  lacks  seasons  or  not  is  a 
question  of  fact  that  is  best  settled  on 
the  spot,  where  daily  instances  of  the 

17 


Windfalls,  of  Observation 


Some  re 
markable 
results  of 
physical 
conditions. 


climate  may  be  put  in  evidence.  Prob 
ably  it  doesn't ;  but  if  it  does,  its  defi 
ciency  is  a  serious  one. 

We  of  New  York  and  New  England 
•and  the  comparatively  effete  East  abuse 
our  climate  a  good  deal,  and  sometimes 
with  plenty  of  reason.  Professor  Shaler 
has  said  that  "  it  is  rather  to  the  physi 
cal  conditions  of  North  America  than  to 
any  primal  capacity  on  the  part  of  its 
indigenous  peoples  to  take  on  civiliza 
tion  that  we  must  attribute  the  failure 
of  indigenous  man  within  its  limits  to 
advance  beyond  the  lowest  grades  of 
barbarism."  No  doubt  he  is  right  about 
that.  Physical  conditions  include  cli 
mate,  and  North  America,  the  best 
parts  of  it,  is  blessed  with  what  may 
be  termed  a  rot-you-before-you-are-ripe 
climate.  An  indigenous  people  have 
never  been  able  to  mature  in  it  in  a  de 
liberate  and  thorough  manner,  but  have 
invariably  acquired  a  precocious,  sickly 
smartness,  and  perished  off  the  soil, 
leaving  mounds,  arrow-heads,  embroi 
dered  moccasins,  and  sculptured  cities 
behind  them.  The  climate  infuses  irre- 
18 


Climate 


sistible  energy  in  the  folks  that  it  acts 
upon,  and  they  ripen  too  soon.  The 
continent  is  a  sort  of  forcing-bed.  But 
while  it  it  is  impossible  for  indigenous 
races  to  come  to  much  in  it,  it  is 
possible  to  get  wonderful  results  from 
transplantation.  Full-grown  English 
men,  Dutchmen,  and  Germans,  brought 
here  full  of  blood  and  sluggish  strength, 
have  been  amazingly  quickened,  and 
have  sometimes  made  greater  progress 
here  in  a  decade  than  their  brethren  at 
home  have  made  in  a  century.  A  spe 
cial  marvel  that  is  apposite  is  the  effect 
of  American  air  upon  the  Irish.  Almost 
all  of  the  Irish  are  well  known  to  be  of 
royal  extraction,  but  at  home  the  stock 
had  fallen  into  decline.  Not  only  have 
their  abilities  in  general  been  notably 
quickened  by  sniffing  the  free  American 
breezes,  but  in  particular  it  is  found  that 
when  the  Celt  sets  foot  on  America's 
shore  an  instinct  of  being  boss,  which  in 
many  cases  had  slept  in  his  blood  for  tens 
of  centuries,  springs  as  if  by  magic  into 
full-sized  life,  and  the  long-lost  prince 
drops  his  hod  and  steps  out  a  ruler  of  men. 

19 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


But  the  climate  is  as  wearing  as  it  is 
stimulating.  It  uses  up  the  materials 
in  an  emigrant  race  presently  ;  and  then 
if  the  members  don't  take  very  good 
care  of  themselves,  they  waste  away. 
Nevertheless,  we  ought  not  to  forget 
that  whatever  its  defects  are,  it  is  par 
celled  out  to  us  in  excellent  variety.  It 
is  a  vast  inconvenience  in  summer  some 
times  to  have  to  pick  up  a  sick  baby  and 
rush  for  the  seashore  or  the  hills  ;  and 
in  the  winter  there  is  pneumonia  and  the 
whole  family  of  throat  and  lung  expe 
riences  ;  and  in  the  spring  there  is  the 
liver.  But  it  is  a  well-seasoned  climate 
all  the  same,  and  where  we  are  not  too 
set  upon  getting  our  whole  annual  expe 
rience  of  it  in  any  one  spot,  it  does  as 
well  by  us  as  any  climate  can  be  expect 
ed  to  do  by  people  of  desires  and  infirm 
ities  such  as  ours.  It  is  our  duty  not 
merely  to  make  the  best  of  it,  but  to 
The  value  make  the  most  of  it.  Does  the  valued 

of  seasons. 

and  intelligent  reader  take  pains  to  do 
that  ?  Does  he  fully  realize  that  in  liv 
ing  in  a  climate  that  is  seasoned  he  en 
joys  opportunities  which  all  people  do 
20 


Climate 


not  have  ?  And  is  he  prepared  for  in 
dustrious  and  painstaking  appreciation 
commensurate  with  his  chances  ?  Let 
him  consider  peoples  whose  lot  is  cast  in 
regions  where  the  meteorological  vicis 
situdes  are  unimportant.  Take  the  good 
people  of  Hayti,  whose  vitals  are  never 
frozen  up  ;  or  the  Esquimaux,  or  Ice 
landers,  who  never  really  get  thawed 
out.  Are  they  over-bright,  these  worthy 
folks  ?  Read  what  Ibsen  has  found  it 
necessary  to  write  to  enlighten  the  sim 
plicity  of  his  compatriots  ;  inquire  as  to 
the  experience  of  Hayti  since  Toussaint 
L'Ouverture's  revolt  ;  and  draw  such 
conclusions  as  you  must  as  to  the  use 
fulness  of  due  alternations  of  freeze  and 
melt  in  making  men's  wits  active  and 
promoting  their  energies.  There  is  said 
to  be  foliage  in  the  tropics  of  a  certain 
sort,  great  lazy  leaves  for  which  the 
botanists  have  names  ;  but  where  there 
are  to  be  oak  or  maple  leaves,  or  hick 
ory  or  beech,  the  sap  must  run  up  the 
trunk  in  the  spring.  Leaves  with  come- 
and-go  to  them,  and  wood  with  a  snap 
in  it,  are  not  the  product  of  those  all- 
21 


Windfalls,  of  Observation 


the-year-round  climates.  Similarly  men. 
We  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,  brethren  ; 
and  it  is  to  the  shifting  of  our  seasons 
that  we  owe  very  much  of  our  savor. 
And  therefore  we  ought  to  make  it 
more  of  a  religious  duty  to  get  the  very 
most  out  of  our  seasons  that  we  can. 

And  especially  make  the  most  of  the 
spring.  It  is  a  trial  oftentimes.  It 
makes  heavy  the  heads  of  men  and  pains 
them  in  the  small  of  their  backs  ;  but 
that  is  precisely  because  they  neglect  it, 
and  take  no  pains  to  accommodate  them 
selves  to  its  requirements.  For  its  spirit 
is  exacting  in  proportion  to  its  value. 
It  is  the  season  of  moods,  of  introspec 
tion,  retrospection,  meditation,  procras 
tination,  forecasts  ;  of  waiting  around 

Go  to  meet  ' 

the  spring,  for  things  to  begin  ;  of  catching  the 
germs  of  enterprises  to  be  hatched  dur 
ing  the  summer  and  launched  into  activ 
ity  when  the  energies  recur  in  the  fall. 
It  is  a  season  that  men  are  too  much  in 
clined  to  crowd,  and  it  avenges  itself  on 
them  for  their  unwisdom.  Do  not  hurry 
it !  Give  it  time  to  work  itself  out  in 
you  !  Dawdle  a  little  !  If  you  cannot 
22 


Climate 


get  into  the  woods,  get  into  the  parks  ; 
and  when  you  cannot  get  to  the  parks, 
saunter  on  the  avenues,  and  stop  long 
before  the  flower-shop  windows.  Go  to 
meet  the  spring  if  you  can.  Go  to 
Washington  in  April  ;  there  you  cannot 
hurry.  There  you  must  saunter  and 
dawdle,  and  invite  your  soul  to  make 
suggestions  to  you.  Go  down  the  Po 
tomac.  Sit  in  the  sun  in  Lafayette 
Square  and  listen  to  things  as  they 
grow.  There  you  will  hear  the  identi 
cal  lenes  susurri  that  caught  the  Hora- 
tian  ear  in  the  Campus  Martius.  There 
there  is  an  atmosphere  ;  there  you  have 
sunshine  overhead,  green  grass  under 
foot,  and  the  past  and  the  present  and 
the  future  all  about  you.  Get  a  taste  of 
a  Washington  spring,  if  only  once  ;  for 
it  will  come  back  to  your  senses  as  often 
as  spring  itself  returns,  and  as  often  as 
it  comes  you  will  bless  it. 


23 


Ill 

COURTSHIP 


COURTSHIP 

JF  any  one  has  his  choice 
about  where  he  shall  grow 
up,  let  him  stipulate  for  a 
family  in  which  there  are 
singers.  It  is  a  sore  pity  to 
grow  up  where  there  is  no  singing.  In 
earlier  days  an  American  child's  chances 
were  better  than  now  of  being  born 
into  a  reasonably  large  family  ;  and 
though  in  some  families  all  the  members 

.  fwuselwld 

have  music  in  them,  and  in  others  none, 
of  course  the  more  there  are  the  better 
the  chances  of  song.  Song  is  almost 
pure  gain.  It  need  not  be  of  very  high 
quality  so  long  as  it  emanates  naturally 
from  inside  of  the  singer,  and  does  him 
good.  Its  value  as  an  appurtenance  to 
domestic  life  lies  not  in  its  merit  as  a 
performance,  but  in  its  success  as  an 
expression  of  the  feelings.  Singing  as 
a  fine  art  is,  of  course,  worth  cultivat- 
27 


Windfalls  •  of  Observation 


ing  ;  but  the  species  of  song  that  we  are 
now  talking  about,  is  of  the  same  sort 
as  the  singing  of  birds  and  of  negroes. 
Ordinary,  normal  children  ought  to  learn 
it  by  ear  as  they  do  language  ;  and  they 
should  sing  because  they  are  happy,  as 
the  birds  do.  A  child  that  grows  up 
where  there  is  no  singing,  no  more  gets 
his  rights  than  a  young  robin  that  is 
hatched  out  in  an  incubator.  The  robin 
is  pretty  sure  to  sing  when  he  grows  up 
and  is  turned  loose  in  the  sunshine, 
whether  his  ear  got  any  early  culti 
vation  or  not,  for  the  habit  has  been 
strong  in  the  robin  family  for  genera 
tions.  But  if  the  child  does  not  get  his 
singing  instincts  developed  by  example 
while  he  is  a  child,  they  may  stay  asleep 
permanently. 

Tt   appears   that   the   best  singing  of 
Scourl°ship      'J!rc^s  i§  performed  as  an  accessory   to 
courtship.     Certainly  it  is  that  way  with 
humans  ;..  and  a  child  whose  parents  are 
past  the  singing  age,   or  have   had  the 
song  stopped  out  of  their  lives  by  too 
much    cloudy   weather,  'may    still    have 
tunes  running  in  his  head,  and  sentiment 
28 


Courtship 


percolating  through  his  soul,  if  only  he 
has  an  elder  sister  with  a  proper  string 
of  beaux.  Just  what  the  songs  of  court 
ship  are  in  this  decade,  the  lovers  of  this 
decade  best  know.  A  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury  ago  there  was  a  set  that  are  still 
running  in  the  heads  of  middle  -  aged 
people,  and  that  will  continue  to  run  in 
the  heads  of  some  of  them  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  to  come. 

In  that  period,  as  doubtless  now,  there 
were  songs  of  encouragement  and  songs 
of  consolation,  songs  for  the  right  man 
who  came  at  the  right  time,  and  for  the 
wrong  man,  and  for  the  right  man  who 
came  at  the  wrong  t  time.  Particularly 
there  were  songs  for  the  right  man 
who  came  forever  too  late,  after  the 
wrong  man  had  put  the  bars  up  and  was 
sitting  on  top  of  them  with  a  gun  across 
his  knees.  The  song  in  these  cases  came 
floating  through  the  bars.  "  I'll  hang  my 
harp  on  a  willow-tree,"  was  a  prevalent 
ditty  in  those  days,  and  a  great  favorite 
with  the  wrong  man,  as  it  is  bound  to  be 
in  every  generation  that  it  can  reach. 
Another  particularly  serviceable  ballad 
29 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


was  worn  smooth  in  the  service  of  the 
wrong  man,  being  sung  sometimes  by 
the  man  himself  to  drown  his  misery,  and 
again  by  the  maiden,  with  the  design  of 
letting  him  down  as  tenderly  as  pos 
sible.  It  began,  "  Yes,  I  know  that  you 
once  were  my  lover  ;"  and  it  ended — 
some  readers  may  remember  it — with 
this  time-honored  sentiment : 

"  I  can  love  you  indeed  as  a  brother, 
But  my  heart  is  Jo  Hardy's  alone." 

The  tender  mercies  of  the  wicked  are 
said  to  be  cruel,  and  perhaps  they  are, 
absolutely  speaking.  But  compared  with 
the  tender  mercies  of  the  betrothed 
maiden  to  the  wrong  man,  they  certainly 
seem  less  harsh. 

One  of  the  songs  that  used  to  be  sung 
by  the  right  man  twenty-five  years  ago, 
was  "  Kathleen  Mavourneen."  As  often 
as  not  they  used  to  sing  it  together.  It 
is  an  old  song  now  as  songs  go,  and  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  the  lovers  of  this 
generation  often  sing  it..  There  must  be 
biggish  children  who  have  never  heard 
it.  Poor  lovers  !  Poor  children  !  the 

3° 


Courtship 


middle-aged  will  say  :  "  It  must  be  hard 
to  have  to  grow  up  like  that !  "  Indeed, 
there  was  once  an  incurable  enthusiast — 
he  must  be  middle-aged  now — who  used 
to  aver  that  when  he  got  to  be  rich 
enough  to  have  what  he  wanted,  he  was 
going  to  employ  a  military  band,  with  a 
solo  cornet  player,  to  play  "  Kathleen 
Mavourneen  "  in  the  garden  underneath 
his  window  at  sunrise  every  fair  morning 
in  the  month  of  June. 

So  it  seems  that,  although  an  old  song 
is  the  synonyme  of  worthlessness  to  any 
one  who  doesn't  know  it,  with  any  one 
who  ever  really  took  it  in,  it  passes  cur 
rent  always.  One  and  indivisible  is  a 
man  and  the  songs  he  heard  when  he 
was  young,  provided  he  heard  any. 

And  speaking  of  the  old  songs  and 
their  associations,  what  is  a  man  to  do 
about  those  interesting  possibilities  that 
he  calls  his  first  loves  ?  I  say  "  possi 
bilities,"  using  the  plural  (and  thereby 
doing  violence,  perhaps,  to  popular  pre 
judice),  because  of  the  conviction  that 
experience  does  not  always  teach  enough, 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


and  that  in  a  good  many  cases  expe 
riences  are  needed.  If  there  are  any 
agencies  which  are  more  usefully  instruc 
tive  than  first  loves  in  ripening  adol 
escence  into  manhood,  this  deponent 
knoweth  them  not,  and  his  ears  are 
erect,  and  his  eyes  intent  for  the  cata 
logue  of  them. 

First  By  ^rs^  l°ves  be  it  understood  to  in- 

iwes  elude  not   only  that   preliminary  being 

who  first  makes  the  incipient  man  aware 
of  a  peculiarity  in  his  affections,  but  all 
the  constellation  of  beings,  more  or  less 
angelic,  who  become  the  successive 
guiding  stars  of  his  existence,  from  the 
time  he  achieves  tailcoats  until  some 
woman  takes  him  for  better  or  worse, 
with  all  the  fruits  of  a  protracted  train 
ing  in  him.  Of  course  there  are  some 
individual  males  who  find  their  pole-star 
at  the  first  essay,  and  never  wobble  af 
terward  in  their  courses.  The  limited 
knowledge  of  men  of  this  sort  may  pre 
vent  them  from  realizing  that  their  ex 
perience  is  exceptional.  They  must  go 
to  the  books  to  learn  what  is  the  common 
lot  of  common  men,  and  there  is  no  book 

32 


Courtship 


that  recalls  itself  at  this  moment  to  which 
they  can  go  to  better  purpose  than  to 
Edmond  About's  "  Story  of  an  Honest 
Man."  There  they  will  discover,  if  they 
need  it,  how  the  impact  of  successive 
entities  upon  the  affections  may  hammer 
them  at  last  into  a  durable  article,  grace 
ful  to  contemplate,  and  able  to  stand  the 
wear  and  tear  of  a  work-a-day  life. 

Now  as  to  those  several  entities.  Many 
a  man,  unlike  About's  autobiographical 
hero,  feels  constrained  to  regard  them 
as  monuments  of  his  own  inconstancy 
and  weakness,  and  either  buries  his 
memories  of  them  in  unmarked  graves, 
or  recalls  them  shamefacedly  and  with  a 
very  sneaking  sort  of  tenderness.  The 
greater  fool  he  !  I  miss  the  proper  point 
of  view  if  such  half-hearted  sentiments  to  t«  ch 
are  not  mistaken  ;  and  if,  by  entertain- 
ing  them,  he  does  not  needlessly  con 
tribute  to  blot  out  some  of  the  most 
charming  and  interesting  oases  in  all  his 
desert  of  a  past.  A  lad  at  college,  though 
college  for  the  time  is  all  the  world  to 
him,  does  not  deem  it  necessary  to  forget 
that  he  was  once  at  school  :  nor  does  a 

33 


Windfalls,  of  Observation 


man  new  launched  in  the  real  world 
affect  to  forget  that  he  was  once  a  part 
of  the  microcosm  known  as  college.  In 
deed,  the  difficulty  often  is  to  make  a 
college  man  remember  anything  else. 
But,  by  a  very  prevalent  affectation,  a 
married  man  is  supposed  to  forget  that 
eyes  are  fine  in  more  than  one  color,  or 
that  other  agencies  than  age  or  dye 
have  ever  been  potent  to  change  his 
views  as  to  the  proper  hue  of  hair.  The 
truth  is,  to  be  spoken  flatly  and  with 
confidence  that  it  is  the  truth,  that  a 
man  who  does  not  love  his  first  loves 
all  his  life  long  makes  a  great  mistake 
and  does  injustice  to  his  own  past.  But, 
of  course,  he  is  to  love  them  as  they 
were.  The  affection  they  inspired  in 
him,  when  they  did  inspire  it,  is  a  part 
of  himself  for  all  time,  and  they,  as  they 
then  seemed,  are  a  part  of  him  too,  and 
it  is  as  idle  for  him  to  try  to  eradicate 
them  from  his  actuality  as  for  the  leop 
ard  to  attempt  to  change  spots  with  the 
Ethiopian.  That  he  should  love  what 
they  may  become  with  the  lapse  of  years 
is  manifestly  inexpedient  and  unreason- 

34 


Courtship 


able,  as  well  as  usually  improper,  if  for 
no  other  reason,  because 

"  One  must  not  love  another's." 

There  was  obviously  a  corner  in 
Praed's  heart  where  "  the  ball-room's 
belle  "  had  permanent  lodgings,  but  ob 
viously,  too,  he  had  no  special  tender 
ness  for  "  Mrs.  Something  Rogers,"  but 
regarded  her,  no  doubt,  with  an  interest 
that  was  always  friendly,  but  never  un 
comfortably  acute,  as  one  is  apt  to  regard 
the  cocoon  from  which  some  particularly 
lovely  butterfly  has  escaped.  True  al 
ways  to  the  butterfly,  doubtless  Praed 
disassociated  it  from  Mr.  Something 
Rogers's  cocoon.  When  the  fledgling 
Pendennis  loved  the  Fotheringay,  he 
loved  her  from  his  hat  to  his  boot-soles, 
and  don't  imagine  that  he  ever  succeed 
ed — even  if  he  was  fool  enough  to  try — 
in  erasing  that  lovely  image  from  his 
memory.  The  Fotheringay  saw  the  be 
ginning  of  a  habit  of  woman-worship  of 
which,  in  due  time,  Laura  reaped  the 
benefit.  And  there  was  Genevieve ! 

35 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


What  an  education  she  was  to  Coleridge! 
And  can  you  imagine  that  he  ever  re 
canted,  whatever  Mrs.  Coleridge's  bap 
tismal  name  may  or  may  not  have  been! 
Men  may  as  well  make  up  their  minds 
— and  women,  too — that  first  loves  are 
facts — most  respectable  and  laudable 
facts,  and  not  shadows  ;  and  while  they 
need  not  be  obtruded  on  a  world  that  is 
not  interested  in  them,  they  are  neither 
to  be  snubbed  nor  denied,  but  respect 
fully  entertained  and  cherished.  Of  all 
history,  the  most  instructive  to  a  man  is 
his  own.  He  can  keep  it  to  himself,  if 
he  will,  and  oftentimes  it  is  very  proper 
that  he  should,  but  he  cannot  afford  to 
forget  any  of  it.  The  discreditable  parts 
he  must  remember  as  a  warning  to  him 
self,  and  the  rest,  his  first  loves  among 
them,  to  encourage  him. 

One  of  the  parts  that  will  make  him 
blush,  when  he  recalls  it,  is  his  callow 
and  dishonest  attitude  toward  that  ad 
junct  of  courtship,  the  maiden's  natural 
protector.  In  a  letter  announcing  that 
he  would  visit  me,  a  certain  young  friend 

36 


Courtship 


says  :  "  It  is  a  year  since  I  have  had  a 
talk  with  you,  and  this  is  the  time  of  all 
others  when  I  feel  the  need  of  taking 
counsel  with  you  over  certain  matters." 
I  daresay  the  matters  that  he  wants 
to  talk  over  are  not  more  momentous 
than  whether  checked  trousers  or  striped 
are  best  suited  to  the  conformation  of 
his  maturing  legs  ;  nevertheless,  his  no 
tice  sends  a  momentary  chill  down  my 
spine.  The  trouble  is  that  he  is  at  that 
unscrupulous  age  when  youths  of  aver 
age  sentiment  and  no  definite  expecta 
tions  make  no  bones  at  all  of  falling 
desperately  in  love,  and  appealing  to 
the  most  available  elder  to  know  what 
to  do  about  it. 

Now,  he  is  a  fairly  prudent  lad,  and  I 
cannot  really  believe  that  he  is  coming 
to  me  with  any  such  audacious  confes 
sion  ;  but  if  he  does,  my  mind  is  per 
fectly  made  up  as  to  what  I  shall  say  to 
him.  I  shall  show  no  more  sympathy 
for  him  than  if  he  were  an  intending 
burglar  meditating  on  the  expediency 
of  breaking  into  some  honest  house 
holder's  tenement.  I  shall  treat  his 

37 


Windfalls  of  Observation 

case  as  lightly  as  if  it  were  measles,  cal 
lously  assuring  him  that  it  is  a  thing  to 
be  endured  while  it  lasts,  but  which  calls 
for  no  action  more  fundamental  than, 
possibly,  a  brief  season  of  retirement 
from  society,  followed  by  a  spirited  re 
sumption  of  the  ordinary  duties  of  life. 
One  thing  in  particular  I  shall  insist 
upon,  out  of  mere  reasonable  regard  for 
fathers  of  daughters — a  class  to  which  I 
have  recently  come  to  find  myself  be 
long!  I  shall  not  permit  him  to  attempt 
any  dealings  with  the  individual  known 
to  persons  in  his  state  as  "  the  old  man." 
"The old  He  shall  not  be  suffered,  if  I  can  help  it, 

man  "  has 

some  rights,  to  make  a  conscientious  parent  acces 
sory  in  any  degree  to  his  callow  infatua 
tion.  He  shall  himself  bear  the  burden 
of  his  complaint,  and  the  full  responsi 
bility  of  his  recovery,  and  there  shall  be 
no  bringing  down  of  gray  hairs  or  inter 
ruption  of  parental  repose  with  untime 
ly  worriment.  It  will  be  time  enough 
for  him  to  tackle  the  old  man  when 
he  has  prospects,  at  least,  to  divulge  to 
him. 

But  all  counsellors  will  not  be  so  con- 

38 


Courtship 


siderate  as  I  of  the  old  man's  comfort. 
He  will  have  a  lot  of  bad  quarter-hours 
between  now  and  next  spring.  It  is  har 
vest  time  for  the  summer's  sowing  of 
flirtation,  and  before  it  ends  and  the 
crop  is  all  in,  too  many  careful  parents 
will  wonder  whether  they  are  in  truth 
kind  fathers,  solicitous  for  the  welfare 
of  their  girls,  or  "  bouncers  "  employed 
in  a  matrimonial  agency.  All  the  world 
loves  a  lover,  and  is  anxious  to  see  him 
win  ;  but  nobody  seems  to  care  for  the 
old  man,  or  have  a  reasonable  apprecia 
tion  of  his  trials.  What  is  he  to  do, 
poor  old  chap,  when  Romeo,  with  a  bold 
front  and  a  heart  quaking  with  conscious 
malfeasance,  discloses  that  during  the 
prevalence  of  the  last  full  moon  but  two, 
he  and  Juliet,  discovered  that  they  were 
affinities,  and  an  experience  of  eight 
weeks  has  confirmed  them  absolutely  in 
that  conviction.  Being  as  yet  a  bache 
lor  of  arts  not  lucrative,  Romeo  does 
not  feel  warranted  in  asking  for  an  im 
mediate  marriage,  but  feels  bound,  as 
a  man  to  whom  deception  is  abhorrent, 
to  put  Mr.  Capulet  in  possession  of  the 

39 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


facts,  and  learn  the  conditions,  if  any, 
on  which  he  will  assent  to  his  daugh 
ter's  betrothal.  Poor  old  Capulet !  He 
knows  the  Montagues  ;  a  most  respect 
able  but  too  abundant  family,  with  tastes 
disproportionately  polite  to  the  dimen 
sions  of  their  income.  He  is  aware  that 
Romeo  is  just  out  of  the  college  where 
it  strained  his  father's  means  to  keep 
him,  and  has  yet  to  make  the  first  prac 
tical  demonstration  of  wage-earning  ca 
pacity.  He  has  no  personal  objection 
to  Romeo,  but  he  is  perfectly  aware  that 
to  permit  his  engagement  to  Juliet  is 
tantamount  to  a  guarantee  that  an  in 
come  shall  presently  be  forthcoming  on 
which  they  may  marry  ;  which  income, 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  forecast,  will 
have  to  take  the  form  of  periodical 
checks  signed  "  Hiram  Capulet." 
7  stobg  Poor  old  Capulet  !  He  doesn't  think 
it  fair  that  honors  should  be  thrust  upon 
him  like  that.  It  is  too  much  like  hold 
ing  up  his  hands  at  the  request  of  an 
enterprising  brigand.  He  is  not  ready 
to  say  yes,  and  knowing  that  the  old 
man  who  hesitates  is  lost,  he  says  no, 
40 


Courtship 


politely,  but  with  decision.  He  will 
make  no  conditions  or  concessions,  nor 
make  himself  a  party  to  Romeo's 
schemes  in  any  shape  or  manner.  So 
Romeo  finds  himself  left  on  his  own 
hands,  with  his  fortune  still  to  win,  and 
on  such  terms  with  old  man  Capulet  as 
must  make  it  embarrassing  for  him  to 
sit  for  any  length  of  time  in  the  moon 
light  on  the  Capulet's  garden  fence. 
And  all  his  own  fault,  too.  He  had  only 
to  hold  his  tongue  and  go  to  work,  and 
he  might  have  led  the  Capulet  german 
next  winter,  and  worn  holes  in  the  car 
pet  under  that  hospitable  family's  ma 
hogany,  both  in  town  and  in  the  coun 
try,  for  several  seasons  to  come — until, 
indeed,  he  could  broach  his  project  to 
the  old  man  with  reasonable  expectation 
of  a  welcome.  As  it  is,  of  course,  he 
isn't  necessarily  beaten,  but  he  has  got 
an  unnecessary  set-back,  and  all  because 
he  would  try  to  shift  the  responsibility 
of  his  own  enterprise  on  to  shoulders 
where  it  did  not  belong.  And  not  only 
has  he  damaged  his  own  cause,  but  he 
has  inflicted  on  the  old  man  a  very  dis- 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


agreeable  job,  which  he  had  not  de 
served,  and  which  probably  made  him 
hate  himself  for  half  the  night  and  all 
the  next  day. 

My  counsel-seeker  shall  do  no  such 
thing  as  that.  He  may  adore  Juliet 
from  her  hat-pin  to  her  heels  just  as 
much  and  just  as  long  as  she  will  let 
him,  and  he  may  impart  to  her  such  dis 
creet  intimation  of  his  sentiments  as  he 
thinks  it  profitable  to  disclose  and  she 
to  hear  ;  but  upon  the  old  man  he  shall 
not  intrude  until  affairs  are  in  such  a 
state  that  his  consent  has  become  mere 
ly  a  felicitous  incident  of  an  inevitable 
event.  It  is  not  the  young  fellow  that 
wants  his  girl  that  the  old  man  respects, 
but  the  man  who  is  ready  to  take  her. 
The  story  is  familiar  (and,  doubtless,  au 
tobiographical)  of  the  eminent  American 
humorist  who,  having  made  up  his  mind 
that  it  was  time  to  speak,  approached 
the  old  man,  inquiring,  "  Judge,  have 
you  noticed  anything  going  on  between 
Miss  Lizzie  and  me  ? "  And  getting 
a  negative  response,  retorted,  "  Well, 
Judge,  look  sharp  and  you  will."  The 
42 


Courtship 


eminent  humorist's  method  was  rather 
more  abrupt  than  I  should  recommend, 
but  it  showed  the  right  spirit,  such  as 
can  only  be  shown  by  the  right  man  at 
the  right  time.  If  my  young  friend 
should  prove  to  have  reached  a  crisis  of 
this  sort,  and  is  not  ready  to  meet  it  in 
just  such  a  spirit,  I  shall  recommend 
him  to  lie  low  ;  and  if  he  feels  that  he 
must  tackle  the  old  man  now,  to  take 
counsel  of  a  recent  comic  paper  and  do 
it  by  letter,  anonymously. 

And  further,  as  to  courtship  : — Owing 
to  the  complications  of  modern  life,  and  ffaffm 
the  large  increase  in  the  list  of  creature 
comforts  which  polite  people  have  come 
to  regard  as  necessaries,  marriage  has 
become  a  vastly  more  serious  undertak 
ing  than  it  used  to  be,  and  is  deferred 
until  a  later  period  of  life.  People  in 
cities  who  have  been  used  to  wear  good 
clothes,  and  to  have  servants  to  wait  on 
them,  and  to  go  out  of  town  in  summer, 
no  longer  marry  when  the  girl  is  eigh 
teen  and  the  man  twenty-two.  The  man 
is  apt  to  be  nearing  thirty  before  his  in- 

43 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


come  will  stand  the  matrimonial  strain, 
and  the  maid  is  proportionately  expe 
rienced.  It  would  not  be  quite  accurate 
to  say  that,  though  it  is  harder  to  get 
married  than  it  was,  it  is  as  easy  as  ever 
to  become  engaged.  That  would  not  be 
quite  true.  The  difficulty  of  getting  in 
come  enough  to  marry  does  defer,  and 
even  prevent,  a  great  many  betrothals  ; 
nevertheless,  engagements  do  often  hap 
pen  when  the  prospect  of  marriage  is 
remote,  and  a  reasonable  percentage  of 
them  last  until  marriage  ends  them. 
Long  engagements  are  not  popular,  but 
enough  of  them  are  running  to  make  the 
behavior  of  their  beneficiaries  a  fit  sub 
ject  for  comment  in  the  interest  of  hu 
man  happiness. 

Now,  society's  attitude  toward  lovers 
is  favorable,  but  lovers  make  a  serious 
mistake  when  they  presume  too  far  on 
the  strength  of  the  world's  traditional 
regard  for  them.  The  polite  world  loves 
its  lovers  exactly  so  long  as  they  are 
interesting  and  agreeable.  When  they 
cease  to  be  so,  its  sentiments  toward 
them  take  the  form  of  anxiety  to  have 

44 


Courtship 


them  married,  which  may  indeed  be  so 
extreme  as  to  result  in  practical  efforts 
to  put  them  in  the  way  of  pairing,  but 
which  is  more  apt  to  take  the  form  of 
what  is  vulgarly  known  as  the  cold 
shoulder.  Lovers  who  are  intelligent, 
and  who  are  disposed  to  make  them 
selves  agreeable,  ought  to  be  exception 
ally  charming.  They  are  enveloped  in 
a  pleasant  blaze  of  sentiment  which 
makes  them  interesting.  So  long  as 
they  are  nice,  all  kind  people  are  in  a 
conspiracy  to  indulge  them  and  make 
them  think  that  life  is  lurid  with  rose- 
tints.  Their  politeness  is  the  more  ap 
preciated  because  it  is  thought  to  in 
volve  especial  self-sacrifice,  and  what 
ever  they  do  for  the  community's  amuse 
ment  is  rated  above  its  ordinary  value 
because  they  have  done  it. 

All  the  worse,  then,  when  lovers  re- 
gard  themselves  as  temporarily  exempt 
from  the  ordinary  obligations  of  polite 
ness,  and  abandon  themselves  to  spoon 
ing  and  mutual  absorption.  The  sort  of 
courtship  that  goes  on  for  hours  behind 
closed  doors,  that  insists  upon  seclusion 

45 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


and  resents  a  third  person,  that  thinks 
first  of  the  beloved  object  and  not  at  all 
of  anyone  else — this  may  do  for  a  six- 
weeks'  intermission  between  maiden 
hood  and  marriage  ;  but  long  engage 
ments  should  be  conducted  on  radically 
different  lines.  Was  there  ever  a  dearer 
sweetheart  than  Lorna  Doone,  whose 
maidenly  reserve  allowed  John  Ridd  one 
kiss  a  day,  and  no  spooning  whatever  ? 
And  do  you  remember  Mary  Garth,  so 
true  to  her  not-any-too-eligible  Fred, 
and  yet  so  strait  and  strict  with  her 
self  ?  Engaged  or  not,  she  must  sure 
ly  have  been  a  welcome  companion  in 
any  house,  Fred  or  no  Fred.  And, 
again,  that  dame  in  silver-gray  who 
married  John  Halifax — be  sure  that  her 
betrothal  was  a  modest  and  unselfish 
one. 

Lace  yourself  straitly,  Mistress  Lucy, 
and  encourage  Colin  to  understand  that 
while  you  stay  under  the  paternal  roof 
the  obligations  of  that  shelter  are  on 
you,  and  forbid  you  to  concentrate  all 
your  courtesy  on  a  single  guest.  It  will 
be  time  enough  to  be  engrossed  and  ex- 
46 


Courtship 


elusive  when  the  parson  has  given  you 
his  blessing ;  and  having  a  roof  of  your 
own,  you  may  properly  decide  whom  it 
shall  shelter,  and  what  shall  be  the 
measure  of  its  hospitality. 


47 


IV 

MARRIAGE    AND     DI 
VORCE 


MARRIAGE     AND     DI 
VORCE 

|UT  it  is  a  perversion  of  dili 
gence  to  formulate  stand 
ards  of  behavior  for  engaged 
persons,  if  it  is  true,  as  di 
vers  otherwise  unemployed 

persons  insist,  that  the  institution  of  is  marriage 
holy  matrimony  is  on  its  last  legs.  The  ****•*•**' 
idea  that  marriage  is  getting  out  of  date 
has  become  so  familiar  since  Mona 
Caird  slipped  its  leash  some  years  ago, 
that  it  no  longer  startles.  It  has  set 
tled  down  into  a  subject  for  regular  dis 
cussion,  like  the  Behring  Sea  difficulty, 
or  coinage,  or  the  alleged  misrule  in 
American  cities.  A  recent  writer  in  the 
Westminster  Review  produced  official  sta 
tistics,  from  England,  France,  Germany, 
and  the  United  States,  to  show  that  the 
matrimonial  habit  was  losing  its  hold  ; 
and  in  a  late  North  American  Mrs.  Wells 

51 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


gave  so  many  good  reasons  why  more 
girls  do  not  marry  as  to  make  a  reader 
wonder  why  any  girl  should  ever  marry 
at  all,  unless  sentenced  to  do  so  by  a 
court  of  law. 

Tolstoi  insists  that  the  whole  institu 
tion  is  rotten  and  sinful  ;  but  Tolstoi  is 
so  palpably  hipped  that  his  anathemas 
are  hardly  profitable  to  discuss.  Mona 
Caird's  theories  it  is  at  least  possible 
to  consider.  She  does  not  believe  in 
the  modification  of  marriage  by  petty 
changes  in  the  laws,  nor  yet  in  its  abol 
ishment.  She  believes  in  marriage  by 
private  contract.  She  thinks  that  peo 
ple  should  be  allowed,  under  gradually 
lessening  restrictions,  to  make  their  own 
marriage  bargain,  and  she  believes  that 
they  would  stick  to  bargains  that  they 
chaffered  over  for  themselves  a  good 
deal  more  successfully  than  to  such  as 
they  pick  up  ready-made.  It  seems  that 
Mona  Caird's  marriages  would  be  part 
nerships  terminable  according  to  the  con 
ditions  of  the  contract,  at  proper  inter 
vals,  or  by  mutual  consent  at  any  time, 
as  other  partnerships  are.  Such  is  the 

52 


Marriage  and  Divorce 


elegant  diversity  of  marriage  laws  al 
ready  existing  in  the  several  States  of 
this  Union,  that  it  seems  as  if  her  theo 
ries  might  get  an  approximately  fair 
trial  here  without  any  new  preliminary 
legislation.  As  it  is,  by  selecting  the 
American  State  in  which  they  chose  to 
be  joined,  people  might  be  married  in 
different  degrees,  according  to  their 
hopes  or  confidence  in  their  own  charac 
ters.  Couples  who  retained  doubts  of 
their  own  stability  could  be  married  by 
justices  of  the  peace  in  Rhode  Island, 
New  Jersey,  or  Delaware.  Those  whose 
hopes  were  stouter  could  have  a  civil 
marriage  in  New  York,  and  church  mar 
riages  could  be  reserved  for  people  who 
were  really  enough  in  earnest  to  stand 
up  and  solemnly  take  each  other  for 
better  or  worse,  for  good  and  ill.  The  A  bad  way. 
objections,  however,  to  such  a  plan  are 
manifold.  For  one  thing,  making  the 
best  of  a  marriage  is  a  form  of  disci 
pline  that  is  often  of  the  highest  value  to 
the  character  ;  but  few  people  would  be 
at  much  pains  to  improve  themselves  in 
just  that  way  if  marriage  should  cease  to 

53 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


be  even  theoretically  permanent.  But 
perhaps  the  most  striking  objection  is 
that  it  would  so  complicate  courtship. 
At  present  the  custom  is  to  get  married 
first,  and  settle  the  conditions  after  the 
fact.  No  man  and  woman  discuss  like 
sane  beings  how  much  they  will  marry. 
Such  a  discussion  would  only  be  pos 
sible  to  two  sophisticated  humans,  en 
dowed,  both  of  them,  with  such  an  active 
sense  of  humor  as  would  certainly  keep 
them  from  becoming  more  than  friends. 
When  there  is  marrying  to  be  done  some 
body  has  got  to  be  in  the  deadest  ear 
nest  about  it.  Marriage  may  result  when 
both  parties  are  in  dead  earnest,  or 
where  one  is  in  earnest  and  one  acqui 
escent,  or  where  the  friends  or  relatives 
are  in  earnest  and  both  the  parties  are 
acquiescent.  But  it  may  be  doubted  if 
people  in  sufficient  command  of  their 
wits  and  their  sense  of  humor  to  discuss 
comfortably  whether  they  had  better 
marry  at  all,  and  if  so  for  how  long  and 
to  what  extent,  are  in  a  state  desperate 
enough  to  warrant  their  entering  the 
marriage  state  at  all.  Punch's  advice 

54 


Marriage  and  Divorce 


was  meant  for  such  as  they,  and  they 
would  take  it.  Courtship,  as  at  present 
conducted,  is  as  though  the  man  who 
had  gained  by  persuasive  arts  a  measure 
of  the  woman's  confidence,  led  her  out 
to  the  end  of  a  pier.  The  water  is  deep 
blue,  and  you  can't  see  the  bottom.  He 
invites  her  to  jump  in  with  him,  and  it 
depends  upon  the  degree  of  satisfaction 
she  finds  in  his  company,  and  her  opin 
ion  of  his  ability  to  fetch  her  ashore, 
whether  she  complies.  Mona  Caird 
would  have  her  say  :  "  I  will  not  jump 
off  here,  where  it  is  over  my  head  ;  but 
if  you  will  come  nearer  the  shore,  where 
the  water  is  not  above  my  knees,  per 
haps  I  may  jump  off  with  you  there  ; 
then  if  we  don't  like  it  we  can  wade 
ashore."  But  then  the  man  would  say  : 
"No!  wading  is  not  swimming.  There 
are  plenty  of  girls  who  are  willing  to  be 
sisters  to  me,  but  what  I  am  after  is  a 
wife." 

Everybody  knows  —  everybody,  that 
is,  except  Mona  Caird— that  woman  is 
not  a  good  hand  at  an  ante-nuptial  bar 
gain.  When  once  she  makes  up  her 

55 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


mind  to  jump  off  the  dock  with  her  man, 
she  doesn't  care  to  take  soundings.  It 
is  sink  or  swim  then,  and  the  deeper 
the  better.  Marriage  is  the  bargain  the 
law  makes  for  her.  It  may  be  a  faulty 
one,  but  it  is  incalculably  better  than  she 
would  make  if  left  to  herself.  Perhaps 
she  may  grow  warier  as  the  eons  accum- 
late.  Who  can  tell  ? 

Divorce.  Meanwhile,  contemporary  marriage  is 

a  bourne  from  which  travellers  return 
with  an  audacity  that  many  persons  re 
gard  as  not  a  little  scandalous.  Critics 
of  divorce  and  divorced  persons,  how 
ever,  show  an  increasing  disposition  to 
cleave  to  the  general  in  their  censure, 
and  avoid  the  particular.  Easy  or  frivo 
lous  divorce  is  condemned  and  deplored, 
but  the  easily  divorced  are  not  excluded 
from  the  politest  society,  nor  do  they 
seem  to  find  much  difficulty  about  remat- 
ing  with  people  who  are  understood  to 
put  a  high  value  on  their  respectability. 
There  seems  to  be  no  particular  use 
in  squeezing  the  divorce  laws  up  any 
tighter,  unless  public  opinion  will  back 
up  the  squeeze.  It  isn't  law  that  con- 

56 


Marriage  and  Divorce 


trols  the  actions  of  the  average  citizen 
so  much  as  the  opinion  of  that  citizen's 
fellows.  There  is  much  in  contempo 
rary  experience  that  favors  the  belief 
that  if  divorce  were  more  difficult,  a 
good  many  people  who  were  excep 
tionally  addicted  to  each  other's  com 
pany,  but  could  not  legally  marry,  would 
live  together  without  marriage  if  society 
were  complaisant  enough  to  condone  it. 
It  is  easier  still  to  believe  that  neither 
statute  nor  public  opinion  will  keep  peo 
ple  together  who  really  want  to  sepa 
rate.  The  surest  hope  for  the  survival 
of  the  marriage  relation  is  based  upon 
the  conviction  of  intelligent  people  that 
continuous  marriages  are  the  best,  and 
that  divorce  at  best  is  a  confession  that 
the  judgment  has  been  mistaken  in  a 
vital  matter,  or  that  affections  that  were 
formally  warranted  to  hold  have  fetched 
loose.  However  easy  the  laws  may  be 
come,  or  whatever  complaisance  polite 
society  may  achieve,  divorce,  with  all  its 
privileges  and  possibilities,  must  con 
tinue  to  be  a  second-rate  bliss  by  no 
means  comparable  to  true  marriage. 

57 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


One  innovation,  however,  might  rea- 
sonably  be  introduced.  It  must  be  ap- 
parent  to  anyone  who  will  take  the 

laws  jor 

players.  trouble  to  read  a  column  of  current  dra 
matic  gossip  in  any  newspaper,  that 
there  ought  to  be  a  special  marriage  law 
for  players.  While  some  persons  of  the 
histrionic  profession  stay  married  a  good 
while,  there  is  no  denying  that  the  aver 
age  of  domestic  infelicity  in  that  pro 
fession  is  exceedingly  high,  and  that  an 
exorbitantly  large  number  of  married 
actors  and  actresses  make  application 
first  or  last  to  be  unmarried.  One  can't 
go  to  a  play  without  realizing  that  this 
tendency  toward  a  variegated  domestic 
ity  is  a  natural  outgrowth  of  play-act 
ing.  Our  minds,  it  is  true,  control  our 
actions,  but  our  actions,  conversely,  have 
a  reflex  influence  on  our  minds,  and  a 
gentleman  who  conscientiously  comports 
himself  on  the  stage  as  the  husband  or 
lover  of  successive  charming  ladies,  is  not 
to  be  over-much  blamed  if  matrimonial 
change  becomes  a  second  nature  to  him, 
and  he  flits  from  flower  to  flower  in  real 
life  as  he  does  in  his  profession. 

58 


Marriage  and  Divorce 


It  seems  odd  enough,  sometimes,  that 
players  should  marry  at  all  ;  but  it  will 
be  remembered  that  marriages  wind  up 
every  play,  and  the  actor's  professional 
experience  strengthens  rather  than  di 
minishes  his  prejudice  in  favor  of  a  con 
ventional  ceremony  with  a  priest  and  a 
ring.  It  is  the  artist  that  marries,  not 
the  man  ;  but  the  artist  and  the  man 
being  inseparable  in  the  law's  eye,  the 
man  is  held  bound  by  the  artist's  action, 
and  has  to  go  to  trouble  and  expense, 
and  sometimes  wait  long  and  make  dis 
tant  journeys,  before  he  can  go  free.  It 
doesn't  seem  quite  right  that  it  should 
be  that  way.  If  a  man  has  the  artistic 
temperament,  and  the  public  encourages 
him  to  cultivate  it  by  going  to  see  him 
act,  it  seems  mean  and  unreasonable  to 
subject  him  to  the  same  sort  of  matrimo 
nial  legislation  as  if  he*  had  had  the  do 
mestic  temperament  to  begin  with,  and 
had  never  been  encouraged  to  do  any 
thing  .to  break  it  up.  Something  ought 
to  be  done  about  it,  but  the  State  leg 
islatures  have  adjourned  again  without 
doing  it. 

59 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


Polygamy  ^  'IS  to°  SOOn  vet>  t)Ut  if  CVCr  it  is  SCt- 

aesdy  rem~  tied  that  marriage  as  it  is  won't  do,  and 
that  something  must  be  done  about  it, 
some  strong  and  persuasive  arguments 
may  be  made  in  favor  of  a  reinstatement 
of  polygamy.  The  basis  of  the  contem 
porary  matrimonial  decline,  as  most 
writers  interpret  it,  is  man.  Man  cannot 
very  well  be  left  out  of  marriage  alto 
gether  without  defeating  some  of  its 
more  important  ends  and  impairing  its 
results.  But  he  can  be  modified  and 
etherealized,  and  of  course  there  would 
be  less  of  him  in  a  plural  marriage  than 
in  a  dual  one.  We  are  told  that  "  in 
woman's  discovery  of  her  ability  to  be 
independent,  self-supporting,  and  self- 
sufficing,  and  in  her  wish  to  work  for 
humanity,  and  not  for  one  man,  her  de 
sire  for  marriage  has  lessened."  It  is  a 
pity  that  her  independence  should  be 
interfered  with,  or  that  it  should  only 
be  fostered  at  the  cost  of  her  family  life. 
Of  course,  if  she  marries  a  whole  man, 
she  may  have  to  be  devoted  to  him  un 
comfortably  ;  but  she  might  take  a  half 
or  a  third  interest  in  a  man  without  in 
fo 


Marriage  and  Divorce 


terfering    too    much    with    her    higher 
aspirations. 

Such  polygamy  as  is  here  suggested  is 
by  no  means  the  same  sort  of  institution 
as  the  patriarchs  experienced  or  as  the 
Mormons  have  lately  repudiated,  since 
its  design  would  be,  not  to  increase 
man's  importance,  but  to  abate  it.  To 
secure  this  result  it  would  probably  be 
necessary  to  reserve  to  women  the  initia 
tive  in  courtship,  and  the  power  of  nom 
inating  new  candidates  for  the  family 
circle,  the  husband  to  have  a  veto  power, 
perhaps,  if  that  should  seem  desirable. 
Some  interesting  consequences  might 
unquestionably  spring  from  such  an  ar 
rangement.  Sisters  who  were  co-heir 
esses  might  unite  upon  a  single  husband, 
thereby  keeping  the  undivided  estate  in 
the  family.  Dear  girl  friends  might  ab 
solutely  refuse  to  be  separated,  and  de 
cline  to  marry  any  man  who  had  not 
room  in  his  heart  and  his  house  for  both. 
So  wives  who  might  form  close  attach 
ments  for  other  women  after  marriage, 
could  invite  their  inseparables  to  share 
their  roof  and  their  husband.  This  pro- 
61 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


posed  dispensation,  too,  would  operate 
as  a  form  of  co-operation  to  put  within 
reach  of  women  who  are  moderately  well 
to  do,  luxuries  which  at  present  are  only 
to  be  had  by  the  very  rich.  In  this 
way  several  American  ladies,  by  lumping 
their  resources,  might  make  such  a  show 
ing  as  to  win  a  British  duke  or  a  German 
or  Italian  prince  of  a  grade  such  as  no 
one  of  them  could  pretend  to  by  herself. 
Often  it  happens  that  a  man  loves  sev 
eral  marriageable  women,  and  the  story 
tellers  even  say  that  several  feminine 
hearts  have  been  known  to  soften  con 
temporaneously  toward  the  same  man. 
Under  an  amended  marriage  law  they 
could  all  marry  him,  and  all  the  wear  and 
tear  of  making  a  choice  and  the  anguish 
of  blighted  affections  be  avoided.  Nor 
would  it  be  the  least  advantage  of  a 
wisely  planned  polygamy  that  it  would  so 
change  the  conditions  of  courtship  that 
ninety-nine-hundredths  of  the  existing 
mass  of  fiction  would  become  obsolete, 
and  leave  the  field  open  to  a  brand-new 
set  of  novels  with  fresh  plots. 

There  may  be  therapeutic  value  in  a 
62 


Marriage  and  Divorce 


well-devised  polygamy.  When  dual  mar 
riage  has  been  abolished,  it  might  be 
tried  before  humanity  despairs  and  re 
solves  to  die  out. 


V 
COLLEGE 


COLLEGE 

jELCOME,  Mr.  New  College 
Graduate,  into  the  world. 
It  is  true  of  the  world,  as 
the  "  Complete  Angler  "  sug 
gested  of  the  strawberry, 
that  God  may  have  made  a  better  one, 
but  not  for  our  immediate  use,  for  he 
hasn't  put  us  in  it.  The  world  is  a 
good  enough  place  if  you  play  fair  and  culture 
pay  attention  to  the  rules.  Money  is  a 
handy  thing  in  it,  but  Mr.  Carnegie  has 
been  saying  that  you  are  spoilt  already 
for  money-making  on  a  very  large  scale. 
He  doesn't  think  your  chance  of  making 
an  eminent  business  man  is  as  good  as 
it  might  be  if  you  already  had  three  or 
four  years  of  shop-boy  experience  to 
start  with. 

Mr.    Pardridge,  the   Chicago   plunger 
who  once  made  a  million    dollars    in  a 
67 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


single  day,  seems  somewhat  of  Mr.  Car 
negie's  opinion,  since  he  has  been  quoted 
as  observing  that  a  man's  financial  suc 
cess  is  not  always  dependent  on  his 
education.  What  Mr.  Pardridge  calls 
"  education  "  is  more  accurately  ex 
pressed  by  the  word  "  culture  ;  "  for  of 
course  a  man  has  got  to  have  education 
of  a  very  definite  quality  before  he  can 
hope  to  find  any  profit  in  balancing  him 
self  on  the  edge  of  the  Chicago  wheat- 
pit.  Education  is  trained  development  ; 
and  the  country-store  boy  whose  mind 
runs  on  trading,  and  who  makes  gradual 
progress  from  peddling  mouse-traps  to 
swapping  railroads,  gets  education  that 
is  quite  as  distinct,  though  probably  not 
as  broad,  as  if  he  were  in  special  train 
ing  to  become  a  college  president.  The 
thing  he  usually  doesn't  get  is  culture  ; 
and  Mr.  Pardridge  is  probably  right  in 
thinking  that  the  sort  of  education  that 
gives  culture  is  a  factor  of  no  particular 
importance  in  most  processes  of  money- 
making. 

But  his  remark  in  its  inverted  form  is 
just   as   true  and  just  as  important,  to 
68 


College 


wit,  that  the  sort  of  education  that 
merely  results  in  money-making  is  of  no 
particular  importance  in  the  promotion 
of  culture.  A  man  may  get  ever  so 
much  culture  and  never  get  rich  ;  and  a 
man  may  get  ever  so  rich  and  never 
achieve  culture  enough  to  speak  polite 
English,  or  know  good  poetry  from  bad. 
Now,  a  money-maker  who  has  no  cult 
ure  is  liable  to  be  hard  put  to  it  to  get 
his  money's  worth  out  of  life  ;  and  the 
upshot  of  his  embarrassments  usually  is, 
that  not  being  fitted  by  education  to  en 
joy  the  things  that  give  pleasure  to  cul 
tivated  minds,  he  either  takes  up  with 
less  innocent  amusements,  or  else  sticks 
to  business  because  it  is  the  only  thing  he 
likes  to  do.  At  best  he  divides  his  time 
between  money-making  and  the  cultiva 
tion  and  enjoyment  of  that  wonderfully 
remunerative  animal,  the  horse.  When 
the  money  has  been  made  in  a  business  of 
large  speculative  possibilities,  there  are 
disadvantages  about  going  on,  merely 
for  amusement,  after  one  has  won 
enough.  Many  men  could  speak  elo 
quently  of  the  disadvantages  of  being 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


driven  by  defective  culture  to  buy  and 
sell  wheat  for  occupation. 

And  yet  it  is  very  awkward,  too,  to  be 
very  long  of  culture  and  very  short  of 
money.  Culture  does  not  make  grind 
ing  poverty  easier  to  bear,  but  rather 
the  reverse  ;  for  though  it  is  true  that 
people  of  the  highest  culture  can  be 
happy  on  moderate  incomes,  it  is  also 
true  that  cultivated  tastes  mean  culti 
vated  wants,  and  an  income  on  which  an 
uncultured  person  could  live  happily 
might  be  below  the  minimum  indispen 
sable  to  the  comfort  of  another  person 
whose  carefully  cultivated  wants  had  be 
come  necessities. 

And  that  is  why  I  am  glad  that  even 
as  money-makers  there  is  some  hope  for 
you  new  graduates.  Suppose  it  is  true, 

ComJ>ensat-    3 

ingadvan-    as  Mr.  Carnegie  avers,  that  you  are  spoilt 

tagesofed-       ,          ,       .  t  .  . 

ucation.  already  for  making  great  fortunes.  A 
lot  of  you  who  are  to  be  doctors  and 
lawyers  and  editors,  and  possibly  minis 
ters,  his  disparagements  do  not  affect  at 
all,  since  you  don't  expect  to  make  great 
fortunes  anyway,  and  for  the  rest  of 
you  who  are  going  into  business,  there  is 
70 


College 

certainly  this  for  consolation,  that  even 
if  the  sort  of  education  you  have  got 
has  lessened  your  chances  of  becoming 
millionaires,  it  has  certainly  improved 
your  chances  of  making  a  reasonable 
living.  It  will  surprise  no  one  ten  or 
fifteen  years  from  now  to  find  you  earn 
ing  from  two  to  ten  thousand  a  year, 
but  if  the  century  goes  out  and  leaves 
you  driving  a  street-car  in  New  Orleans, 
or  waiting  on  table  in  a  San  Francisco 
restaurant,  it  will  be  thought  remarkable 
enough  to  warrant  extended  notices  in 
half  the  newspapers  in  the  United  States. 
You  see  the  great  majority  of  college 
graduates  eventually  make  a  fair  living, 
and  people  are  so  much  in  the  habit  of 
expecting  that  they  will,  that  if  they  do 
not  it  makes  talk. 

Even  though  you  might  have  been 
richer  if  you  had  never  gone  to  college, 
your  chance  of  having  fun  is  better  as  it 
is.  A  bachelor  of  arts  who  cannot  have 
a  better  time  on  five  thousand  a  year 
than  an  average  self-made  millionaire 
can  have  on  fifty  thousand,  has  misused 
his  time. 

71 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


One  point  in  particular  where  you 
ought  to  beat  the  self-made  rich,  is  in 
the  ability  you  should  have  already  ac 
quired  to  command  playmates.  You 
probably  start  out  with  a  much  better 
assortment  of  pals  than  the  average 
nascent  millionaire  had  at  your  age,  and 
your  chance  of  affiliating  with  congenial 
companions  all  your  life  through  is  bet 
ter  than  his  ever  was.  That  is  one 
thing  that  college  should  have  done  for 
you,  and  another  is  that  it  should  have 
helped  you  to  make  companions  of 
books. 

Pleasant  people  are  the  pleasantest 
thing  in  the  world,  and  pleasant  books 
are  the  next  pleasantest.  Both  of  these 
you  ought  to  have  learned  already  to 
choose  and  enjoy,  and  if  you  have, 
don't  doubt  but  that  your  time  has 
been  well  spent.  Professor  Everett 
used  to  say  fifteen  years  ago — "When 
Horace  says  '  beatus '  he  doesn't  mean 
'happy,'  he  means  'rich.'  Translate 
it  'rich.'"  We  confuse  "rich"  and 
"  happy  "  in  these  days  too,  but  they  are 
not  yet  quite  the  same  thing. 
72 


College 


It  is  a  e:ood  while  since  any  business 

A    A    u-  •    •  r    4.U     Mr.  Payer- 

man,   has   recorded   his   opinion    of   the 

value  of  a  college  education  so  clearly 
and  so  impressively  as  was  done  by  the 
late  Mr.  Fayerweather,  the  leather  mer 
chant,  in  his  will.  Mr.  Fayerweather 
was  an  excellent  man  of  business.  He 
began  to  earn  money  very  early  in  life — 
not  from  choice,  but  because  he  had  to. 
When  other  lads  of  his  age  were  at 
school  he  was  peddling  commodities  in 
country  villages,  and  during  the  years 
which  luckier  youths  spend  in  college,  he 
was  acquainting  himself  with  the  rudi 
ments  of  the  leather  business.  About 
the  time  his  college-going  contempo 
raries  were  beginning  their  junior  year, 
he  got  a  place  in  "  The  Swamp,"  and  in 
"  The  Swamp  "  he  continued  for  the  rest 
of  his  days. 

Men  live  a  long  time  in  "  The  Swamp." 
The  smell  of  hides  is  not  altogether 
pleasing,  but  it  is  understood  to  be 
wholesome,  and  it  makes  for  longevity. 
But  Mr.  Fayerweather  did  not  dally  with 
hides  for  his  health.  He  went  to  "  The 
Swamp  "  to  make  money.  And  he  did 

73 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


make  money.  He  was  sagacious  and 
prudent,  and  worked  hard.  Moreover 
he  knew  all  about  leather,  and  leather 
interested  him.  He  kept  his  mind  on  it. 
When  he  laid  awake  nights  he  did  not 
meditate  as  to  how  Julius  Caesar  built 
bridges  in  Gaul  or  who  wrote  Homer's 
poetry,  nor  about  the  chances  of  this 
year's  football  team,  nor  of  any  of  those 
things  that  liberally  educated  minds 
dwell  upon.  He  put  in  his  meditation 
upon  leather.  Accordingly  he  prospered 
in  the  leather  business.  When  there  were 
dimes  to  be  made  in  it  he  carefully 
garnered  those  dimes,  and  when  some 
thing  in  particular  was  up,  and  dollars 
were  being  distributed,  he  was  present 
and  took  care  that  such  as  were  coming 
to  him  got  into  no  one  else's  pocket  by 
mistake.  So  presently  he  wras  well-to- 
do,  and  had  an  income  that  kept  heap 
ing  itself  up.  Then  his  aggravations 
began. 

For  though  he  knew  well  enough  how  to 
make  money,  there  were  dreadful  defects 
in  his  ability  to  spend  it.  He  dared  not 
stop  working,  for  he  had  never  learned 

74 


College 

to  loaf,  and  the  more  he  worked  the 
more  money  he  made.  He  travelled  a 
little,  but  he  didn't  like  it.  Neither  did 
he  care  for  horse-racing,  nor  yachting, 
nor  Scotch  moors,  nor  old  Chinese 
pottery,  nor  pictures,  nor  books,  nor 
coaching,  nor  Ward  McAllister,  nor  or 
chids.  He  just  liked  leather,  and  next 
to  selling  it  he  liked  to  buy  it.  More 
over,  having  had  no  chance  in  his  youth 
to  make  friends,  he  had  very  few  old 
friends,  and  he  was  shy  of  attempting 
any  social  experiments,  because  he  knew 
that  society  was  miscellaneous  in  its 
tastes  and  unlikely  to  be  a  comfortable 
field  of  enterprise  for  a  modest  mer 
chant  who  was  aware  that  all  he  knew 
well  was  leather.  His  children,  if  he  had 
had  any,  might  have  learned  to  have  any 
amount  of  fun,  and  to  make  gratifying 
holes  in  his  surplus,  but  as  luck  would 
have  it  he  didn't  have  any  children. 

So,  as  the  old  man  sat  at  his  desk  in 
"  The  Swamp,"  and  saw  his  income  pil 
ing  up  and  his  thousands  running  up 
into  millions  and  salting  themselves 
down,  he  determined  that,  so  far  as  lay 

75 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


in  his  power,  he  would  take  care  that 
what  had  happened  to  him  should  hap 
pen  less  frequently  in  times  to  come. 
So  he  carved  up  his  fortune  into  con 
venient  slices,  by  will,  and  distributed  it 
around  among  a  dozen  or  more  Ameri 
can  colleges,  thereby  hoping  to  make 
education  easier  for  poor  boys,  and  keep 
them  out  of  such  a  scrape  as  he  had 
gotten  into  himself. 

Certainly  he  chose  a  wise  means  to 
accomplish  the  worthy  end  he  had  in 
view.  That  any  man  who  has  had  fair 
educational  chances  in  his  youth  will 
ever  accumulate  in  trade  as  great  a  for 
tune  as  Mr.  Fayerweather's,  is  as  un 
likely  as  that  any  college-bred  youth 
would  ever  find  difficulty  in  having  fun 
with  the  income  of  as  large  a  fortune  as 
a  Mr.  Fayerweather  might  accumulate. 
So,  by  his  wise  bequests  he  planned  to 
diffuse  a  great  remedial  agent,  which 
works  in  two  ways  at  once — diminishing 
men's  ability  to  heap  up  very  great  for 
tunes,  and  greatly  increasing  their  capac 
ity  to  get  happiness  out  of  small  ones. 

The  new  college-graduate  is  part  of 
76 


College 

the  high-class,  raw  material  of  the  world  ; 
and  yet,  we  hope  for  him  that  he  isn't  so 
raw  by  a  good  deal  as  he  might  be  if  he 
had  not  gone  to  college.  The  primary 
problem  with  a  lad  is  to  teach  him  to 
take  care  of  himself.  He  must  present 
ly  be  turned  loose  in  the  world,  and  we 
want  him,  when  that  time  comes,  to  have 
sense  enough  to  keep  clear  of  pitfalls, 
and  to  cleave  unto  that  which  is  sincere 
ly  lucrative.  It  has  been  held  by  high 
authority  that,  since  it  is  no  part  of  the  Don't  shut 

all  the  bad 

business  of  modern  university  professors  boys  out! 
to  spy  out  the  iniquity  of  bad  young 
men,  colleges  would  be  reserved  for 
studious  men  about  whom  their  fathers 
and  mothers  are  not  anxious.  But  this 
opinion  is  not  compulsory,  and  one  may 
believe,  if  he  can,  that  men  may  make 
their  parents  anxious  and  yet  be  capable 
of  use  to  a  college  and  of  profiting  by  it. 
They  can  be  useful  as  payers  of  dues,  for 
one  thing,  and  the  increased  income  the 
college  derives  from  them  can  be  spent 
in  giving  additional  advantages  to  their 
fellows.  Their  presence  is  worth  some 
thing,  too,  as  giving  their  quieter  breth- 

77 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


ren  an  opportunity  to  witness  the  re 
puted  delights  of  a  gay  life,  and  to  real 
ize  their  hollowness.  There  are  many 
things  a  man  need  never  do  in  after-life 
if  he  has  had  the  necessary  experience  of 
them  in  college  ;  and  many  things  he 
need  never  do  at  all  if  only  he  has  seen 
them  done.  Thus,  in  colleges  that  per 
mit  the  presence  of  some  frivolous  char 
acters,  studious  young  men  are  enabled 
to  get,  by  observation  alone,  an  ample 
and  costly  experience  of  life  without  be 
ing  subjected  to  personal  sacrifices  either 
of  time  or  money.  Thus  it  appears  that 
both  the  funds  and  the  actual  didactic 
abilities  of  a  college  are  increased  by  let 
ting  in  some  of  those  young  men  as  to 
whom  their  parents  are  anxious. 

It  is  worth  while,  too,  to  consider  the 
young  men  themselves.  Even  though 
they  are  defective  in  studiousness  and 
cause  their  parents  anxiety,  should  they 
be  utterly  thrown  out  for  those  reasons 
alone  ?  There  is  always  the  chance  that 
association  with  studious  lads  may  be  a 
benefit  to  them,  and,  certainly,  if  they 
are  prohibited  in  advance  from  college  it 

78 


College 


is  hard  to  suggest  an  experiment  that 
may  properly  be  tried  with  them,  inas 
much  as  home  has  usually  failed  already 
with  this  sort,  and  they  are  not  yet  ripe 
for  the  gallows.  If  such  young  men  ac 
quire  sufficient  book-learning  to  pass  the 
examinations  preliminary  to  getting  into 
a  good  college,  and  are  willing  to  make 
a  sufficient  sacrifice  of  their  personal  in 
clinations  to  do  the  work  which  is  indis 
pensable  to  their  continuance  there,  it  is 
easily  possible  that  they  come  as  near  to 
being  in  the  right  place  as  their  per 
verted  natures  will  permit. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten,  either,  that 
though  the  boy  is  father  to  the  man,  the 
man  is  sometimes  a  very  late  crop. 
Some  men  ripen  long  after  they  have 
left  college,  but  they  ripen  differently 
from  having  been  in  college.  Nor  is  it 
invariably  the  men  who  have  caused 
their  parents  the  least  anxiety  who 
make  the  greatest  figure  in  the  world  or 
show  themselves  best  worth  educating. 
General  Grant  never  did  much  while  at 
West  Point  (nor  for  long  afterward)  to 
warrant  the  expenditure  of  government 

79 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


money  on  his  education,  but  when  his 
time  finally  came,  his  early  training  was 
worth  more  to  this  country  than  a  brick 
house.  Bismarck's  time  at  Gottingen 
seems  to  have  been  put  in  largely  in 
duelling  and  drinking  punch  with  John 
Motley.  Nevertheless,  he  was  worth  such 
pains  as  his  professors  took  with  him. 

Give  the  studious  youth  the  best  of 
chances,  and  don't  let  them  be  hindered 
or  cramped  by  rules  which  are  only 
needed  by  roysterers,  but  don't  throw 
the  other  sort  out  entirely.  Give  the 
lad  for  whom  his  parents  quake  a  chance, 
too.  He  has  the  makings  of  character  in 
him,  and  though  such  friendships  and 
such  education  as  you  can  give  him  may 
not  seem  like  much  now,  they  may  make 
a  heap  of  difference  to  him  forty  years 
hence. 

A  circular  that  has  been  sent  out  to 
Harvard  graduates,  asking  for  money  to 
put  some  new  athletic  fields  in  order,  is 
accompanied  by  a  picture  of  the  new 
grounds  as  they  are  going  to  be.  The 
new  fields  are  just  about  a  hundred 
80 


College 

acres  roomier  than  the  old  (a  good  deal  Areathlet. 
of  it  marsh-land,  to  be  sure),  and  when 
they  are  laid  out  and  planted,  and  built 
upon  as  the  picture  shows,  with  ball- 
fields,  race-tracks,  grand  stands,  boat- 
houses,  and  various  supplementary  tem 
ples  to  Hercules  and  Diana,  they  will 
bear  exceedingly  significant  testimony  to 
the  growing  disposition  in  this  country, 
at  this  time,  to  seek  a  sound  physical 
foundation  for  the  intellectual  super 
structure.  The  Greeks  built  that  way, 
and  for  centuries  there  has  been  a  col 
lege-bred  conviction  that  the  way  in 
which  the  Greeks  did  things  was  the 
right  way.  All  the  American  colleges 
recognize  now  the  educational  useful 
ness  of  the  work  that  is  done  with  brain 
and  muscle  in  the  open  air,  and  provide 
for  it  as  they  can. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if,  in  the 
last  two  months  of  the  college  year,  the 
tendency  toward  athletics  seems  almost 
too  strong,  and  the  provision  for  it  too 
ample.  Then  it  is  that  respectable  mid 
dle-aged  fogies  come  out  of  their  holes 
and  cry  aloud  that  physical  education 
81 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


has  entirely  got  the  better  of  the  intel 
lectual  department.  When  spring  has 
fairly  cleared  her  throat  and  found  her 
voice,  her  call  is  all  but  irresistible,  and 
nothing  less  than  the  prospect  of  an 
indispensable  pecuniary  settlement  on 
Saturday  night  avails  to  keep  rightly 
constituted  individuals  indoors.  It  is 
particularly  potent  with  undergraduates 
and  legislators,  and  from  class-rooms  and 
State-house  halls  comes  the  same  moan 
about  the  difficulty  of  getting  a  quorum. 
It  is  so  pleasant  at  this  season  to  sit  on 
a  bench  in  the  sun  and  see  good  men 
strike  at  balls  and  run  bases,  or  to  stand 
on  a  moving  platform-car  and  shriek  at 
oarsmen  on  a  river,  or  even  to  wave  a 
bat  or  toil  at  an  oar-handle  one's-self, 
that  the  athletic  proceedings  supplemen 
tary  to  education  really  do  get  an  inor 
dinate  amount  of  attention.  It  is  nat 
ural  enough  that  any  calamitous-minded 
prophet  who  contrives  to  avoid  the  spell 
of  the  season,  should  heap  dust  on  his 
head  and  reiterate,  all  through  June,  that 
the  last  has  become  not  merely  first,  but 
the  whole  procession. 
82 


College 

It  is  a  comfort  to  be  able  to  assure  Nof 
such  protestants  that  there  are  figures, 
veracious  and  undeniable,  which  prove, 
in  spite  of  all  delusive  signs,  that  the  in 
tellectual  end  of  education  was  never  so 
highly  prized  as  now.  Price  is  not  an 
accurate  measure  of  value,  but  often  it  is 
the  most  reliable  measure  to  be  had,  and, 
at  all  events,  it  is  good  enough  for  pur 
poses  of  comparison.  When  the  price  of 
the  highest  grade  of  intellectual  educa 
tion  goes  up  because  the  demand  has 
exceeded  the  supply,  it  is  a  pretty  sure 
symptom  that  intellectual  education  is 
not  being  neglected.  That,  in  a  way,  is 
what  has  happened  in  the  American  col 
leges.  Term  bills  have  not  increased, 
but  college  presidents  wish  they  had, 
and  that  the  resulting  aggravation  of 
income  was  available  to  meet  the  in 
creasing  cost  of  professors.  New  uni 
versities  in  the  West,  strong  in  position 
and  in  the  amplitude  of  their  endow 
ments,  have  sent  successive  emissaries 
eastward,  charged  to  spare  no  expense 
in  procuring  the  most  distinguished 
pedagogical  talent  that  is  open  to  con- 

83 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


siderations  of  pecuniary  enlargement  and 
increased  opportunities  of  usefulness. 
The  result  is  that,  nowadays,  a  high- 
grade  base-ball  player  can  be  hired  for 
less  money  than  a  high-grade  professor, 
and  that  some  professors  are  in  honor 
able  possession  of  incomes  that  actually 
take  away  one  of  the  immemorial  re 
proaches  of  the  pedagogical  profession, 
since  they  would  be  considered  amply 
remunerative  of  the  services  of  an  ac 
complished  French  cook. 

So,  whatever  may  be  the  feelings  of 
the  fogies  as  they  read  of  crowded  ball- 
games  and  boat-races  on  rivers  swarm 
ing  with  yachts,  for  the  present  at  least 
they  may  as  well  hold  their  peace.  So 
long  as  professors  are  notoriously  in  de 
mand  at  the  highest  prices  ever  offered, 
the  fogies  cannot  hope  to  get  anybody 
to  believe  that  the  intellectual  end  of 
education  is  neglected. 

The  tours  of  the  college  glee-clubs 
during  the  holidays,  and  one  or  two 
dinners  of  Yale  and  Harvard  clubs  that 
came  to  my  notice,  suggested  certain  re- 

84 


College 


flections  as  to  the  proper  limit  of  a  gradu 
ate's  devotion  to  his  alma  mater.  When 
he  stands  up  in  evening  dress,  with  a 
glass  of  champagne  in  his  hand,  and 
drinks  her  health,  of  course  he  is  excus 
able  if  he  tints  his  emotion  with  enthu 
siasm,  and  declares  that  he  is  hers  and 
that  she  is  his  always,  and  more  or  less 
exclusively.  But  how  far  is  this  really 
so  ?  and  if  it  is  so,  is  it  a  laudable  or 
desirable  fact  ? 

College  usually  puts  a  stamp  on  a  man  w^enyou 
which  sticks  to  him  all  his  life  long.     It  f^J/ of 
shapes  his  tastes,  and  usually  determines 
in  what  company  he  is  to  begin  the  seri 
ous  work  of  living.     It  starts  him.     The 
most  salient  fact  about  a  new  graduate 
of  Yale,  say,  or  Princeton,  who  comes  to 
New  York  to  work,  is  that  he  is  "  a  Yale 
man,"  or  "a  Princeton  man." 

That  is  all  very  well,  at  the  start.  It 
identifies  him  to  a  certain  extent,  and 
is  useful  for  descriptive  purposes.  But 
leave  him  in  the  world — New  York  still, 
perhaps — for  ten  years.  Then,  if  he  is 
still  described  as  "a  Yale  man  of  '93," 
without  much  further  detail,  I  think  it  is 

85 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


a  fair  inference  that  he  has  not  been 
doing  much.  The  description  isn't  cred 
itable  any  longer.  There  ought  to  be 
more  to  say  about  him. 

I  should  confess  to  a  feeling  of  satis 
faction  if  some  man  whom  I  had  known 
for  ten  years  in  the  city  of  Oshkosh, 
where  I  live,  should  ask  me  suddenly, 
"Were  you  ever  in  college?"  I  should 
tell  him  I  had  been,  and  if  he  asked  me 
where,  I  should  tell  him  that ;  and  I 
should  be  better  pleased  that  he  should 
be  interested  enough  in  me,  or  in  my 
mental  processes,  to  want  to  know  where 
they  were  trained,  than  that  his  first 
thought  should  be  of  my  college,  and 
his  after-thought  of  me.  And  I  think, 
moreover,  that  I  do  better  by  my  college 
by  putting  in  the  best  work  I  can  on  my 
own  account,  than  if  I  proclaimed  my 
faith  in  her  methods  more  loudly,  and 
was  more  effusive  in  my  sympathy  with 
others  who  did  not  have  the  advantage 
of  her  fostering  care.  Of  course,  the 
crime  of  too  much  concentration  upon 
college  and  college  men  is  the  crime 
of  the  new  graduate.  But,  equally  of 
86 


College 

course,  it  is  something  to  be  got  over  as 
promptly  as  may  be — something  narrow 
ing,  exclusive,  and  a  hinderance  to  use 
fulness. 

When  you  get  out  of  college,  young 
man,  get  clear  out.  You  can  get  back  Ztf  ' 
for  half  a  day  or  so  at  any  time — at  a 
boat-race,  a  foot-ball  match,  at  com 
mencement — whenever  there  is  a  reason 
able  excuse  ;  but  in  your  daily  walk  and 
conversation  be  something  more  than  a 
college  man — be  a  citizen.  Be  even  an 
alderman,  if  you  can.  Take  the  world 
to  be  yours,  as  Bacon  took  all  learning 
to  be  his,  and  don't  forever  limit  your 
view  of  it  by  what  was  once  visible  from 
some  point  in  New  Haven  or  in  Cam 
bridge.  Go  and  be  a  man  somewhere. 
Don't  be  satisfied  to  be  a  mere  "  gradu 
ate  "  for  all  time.  Of  course  you  owe 
your  alma  mater  a  debt  that  you  are 
always  ready  to  pay,  and  a  loyalty  that 
should  have  no  breaks  in  it.  When  you 
have  grown  to  the  size  of  Daniel  Web 
ster,  and  your  Dartmouth  asks  you  to 
defend  her  in  court,  you  are  going  to  be 
proud  when  you  do  it.  That  is  all  right. 

87 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


You  can't  do  too  much  for  her,  or  do  it 
too  well.  If  you  accumulate  any  repu 
tation  that  is  worth  having,  feel  honored 
indeed  when  she  offers  to  share  it  with 
you,  but  don't  be  too  persistently  anx 
ious  to  strut  in  her  plumes  to  the  dis 
paragement,  it  may  be,  of  worthy  men 
who  have  no  claim  to  any  similar  privi 
lege. 


88 


VI 

THE  TYRANNY   OF 
THINGS 


THE   TYRANNY    OF 
THINGS 

TRAVELLER     newly    re 
turned  from  the  Pacific  Ocean 

Jrom  Pata- 

tells  pleasant  stories  of  the 
Patagonians.  As  the  steamer 
he  was  in  was  passing  through 
Magellan's  Straits  some  natives  came  out 
to  her  in  boats.  They  wore  no  clothes 
at  all,  though  there  was  snow  in  the  air. 
A  baby  that  came  along  with  them  made 
some  demonstration  that  displeased  its 
mother,  who  took  it  by  the  foot,  as  The 
tis  took  Achilles,  and  soused  it  over  the 
side  of  the  boat  into  the  cold  sea-water. 
When  she  pulled  it  in,  it  lay  a  moment 
whimpering  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat, 
and  then  curled  up  and  went  to  sleep. 
The  missionaries  there  have  tried  to 
teach  the  natives  to  wear  clothes,  and  to 
sleep  in  huts  ;  but,  so  far,  the  traveller 
says,  with  very  limited  success.  The 
most  shelter  a  Patagonian  can  endure  is 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


a  little  heap  of  rocks  or  a  log  to  the  wind 
ward  of  him  ;  as  for  clothes,  he  despises 
them,  and  he  is  indifferent  to  ornament. 
To  many  of  us,  groaning  under  the 
oppression  of  modern  conveniences,  it 
seems  lamentably  meddlesome  to  under 
mine  the  simplicity  of  such  people,  and 
enervate  them  with  the  luxuries  of  civ 
ilization.  To  be  able  to  sleep  out-of- 
doors,  and  go  naked,  and  take  sea-baths 
on  wintry  days  with  impunity,  would 
seem  a  most  alluring  emancipation.  No 
rent  to  pay,  no  tailor,  no  plumber,  no 
newspaper  to  be  read  on  pain  of  getting 
behind  the  times  ;  no  regularity  in  any 
thing,  not  even  meals  ;  nothing  to  do 
except  to  find  food,  and  no  expense  for 
undertakers  or  physicians,  even  if  we 
fail  ;  what  a  fine,  untrammelled  life  it 
would  be  !  It  takes  occasional  contact 
with  such  people  as  the  Patagonians  to 
keep  us  in  mind  that  civilization  is  the 
mere  cultivation  of  our  wants,  and  that 
the  higher  it  is  the  more  our  necessi 
ties  are  multiplied,  until,  if  we  are  rich 
enough,  we  get  enervated  by  luxury,  and 
the  young  men  come  in  and  carry  us  out. 
92 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


We  want  so  many,  many  things,  it 
seems  a  pity  that  those  simple  Patago- 
nians  could  not  send  missionaries  to  us  A  crush  o 
to  show  us  how  to  do  without.  The  com-  comforts. 
forts  of  life,  at  the  rate  they  are  increas 
ing,  bid  fair  to  bury  us  soon,  as  Tarpeia 
was  buried  under  the  shields  of  her  friends 
the  Sabines.  Mr.  Hamerton,  in  speaking 
of  the  increase  of  comfort  in  England, 
groans  at  the  "  trying  strain  of  expense 
to  which  our  extremely  high  standard  of 
living  subjects  all  except  the  rich."  It 
makes  each  individual  of  us  very  costly 
to  keep,  and  constantly  tempts  people  to 
concentrate  on  the  maintenance  of  few 
er  individuals  means  that  would  in  sim 
pler  times  be  divided  among  many.  "  My 
grandfather,"  said  a  modern  the  other 
day,  "  left  §200,000.  He  was  considered 
a  rich  man  in  those  days  ;  but,  dear  me  ! 
he  supported  four  or  five  families — all 
his  needy  relations  and  all  my  grand 
mother's."  Think  of  an  income  of  $10,- 
ooo  a  year  being  equal  to  such  a  strain, 
and  providing  suitably  for  a  rich  man's 
large  family  in  the  bargain  !  It  wouldn't 
go  so  far  now,  and  yet  most  of  the 

93 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


reasonable  necessaries  of  life  cost  less 
to-day  than  they  did  two  generations 
ago.  The  difference  is  that  we  need 
so  very  many  comforts  that  wrere  not 
invented  in  our  grandfather's  time. 

There  is  a  hospital,  in  a  city  large 
enough  to  keep  a  large  hospital  busy, 
that  is  in  straits  for  money.  Its  income 
from  contributions  last  year  was  larger 
by  nearly  a  third  than  its  income  ten 
years  ago,  but  its  expenses  were  nearly 
double  its  income.  There  were  some 
satisfactory  reasons  for  the  discrepancy 
— the  city  had  grown,  the  number  of 
patients  had  increased,  extraordinary  re 
pairs  had  been  made — but  at  the  bottom 
a  very  large  expenditure  seemed  to  be 
due  to  the  struggle  of  the  managers 
to  keep  the  institution  up  to  modern 
standards.  The  patients  are  better  cared 
for  than  they  used  to  be  ;  the  nurses  are 
better  taught  and  more  skilful  ;  "  con 
veniences  "  have  been  greatly  multiplied; 
the  heating  and  cooking  and  laundry 
work  is  all  done  in  the  best  manner 
with  the  most  approved  apparatus  ;  the 
plumbing  is  as  safe  as  sanitary  engineer- 

94 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


ing  can  make  it ;  the  appliances  for  anti 
septic  surgery  are  fit  for  a  fight  for  life  ; 
there  are  detached  buildings  for  con 
tagious  diseases,  and  an  out-patient  de 
partment,  and  the  whole  concern  is  ad 
ministered  with  wisdom  and  economy. 
There  is  only  one  distressing  circum 
stance  about  this  excellent  charity,  and 
that  is  that  its  expenses  exceed  its  in 
come.  And  yet  its  managers  have  not 
been  extravagant :  they  have  only  done 
what  the  enlightened  experience  of  the 
day  has  considered  to  be  necessary.  If 
the  hospital  has  to  shut  down  and  the 
patients  must  be  turned  out,  at  least  the 
receiver  will  find  a  well-appointed  in 
stitution  of  which  the  managers  have  no 
reason  to  be  ashamed. 

The  trouble  seems  to  be  with  very 
many  of  us,  in  contemporary  private  life 
as  well  as  in  institutions,  that  the  en 
lightened  experience  of  the  day  invents 
more  necessaries  than  we  can  get  the 
money  to  pay  for.  Our  opulent  friends 
are  constantly  demonstrating  to  us  by 
example  how  indispensably  convenient 
the  modern  necessaries  are,  and  we  keep 

95 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


having  them  until  we  either  exceed  our 
incomes  or  miss  the  higher  concerns  of 
life  in  the  effort  to  maintain  a  complete 
outfit  of  its  creature  comforts. 

And  the  saddest  part  of  all  is  that  it 
is  in  such  great  measure  an  American 
development.  We  Americans  keep  in 
venting  new  necessaries,  and  the  people 
of  the  effete  monarchies  gradually  adopt 
such  of  them  as  they  can  afford.  When 
we  go  abroad  we  growl  about  the  incon 
veniences  of  European  life — the  absence 
of  gas  in  bedrooms,  the  scarcity  and 
sluggishness  of  elevators,  the  primitive 
nature  of  the  plumbing,  and  a  long  list  of 
other  things  without  which  life  seems  to 
press  unreasonably  upon  our  endurance. 
Nevertheless,  if  the  res  angustce  domi  get 
straiter  than  usual,  we  are  always  liable 
to  send  our  families  across  the  water  to 
spend  a  season  in  the  practice  of  economy 
in  some  land  where  it  costs  less  to  live. 

Of  course  it  all  belongs  to  Progress, 
and  no  one  is  quite  willing  to  have  it 
stop,  but  it  does  a  comfortable  sufferer 
good  to  get  his  head  out  of  his  con 
veniences  sometimes  and  complain. 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


There  was  a  story  in  the  newspapers 
the  other  day  about  a  Massachusetts 
minister  who  resigned  his  charge  be 
cause  someone  had  given  his  parish  a 
fine  house,  and  his  parishioners  wanted 
him  to  live  in  it.  His  salary  was  too 
small,  he  said,  to  admit  of  his  living  in  a 
big  house,  and  he  would  not  do  it.  He 
was  even  deaf  to  the  proposal  that  he 
should  share  the  proposed  tenement 
with  the  sewing  societies  and  clubs  of 
his  church,  and  when  the  matter  came  to 
a  serious  issue,  he  relinquished  his 
charge  and  sought  a  new  field  of  useful 
ness.  The  situation  was  an  amusing  in 
stance  of  the  embarrassment  of  riches. 
Let  no  one  to  whom  restricted  quarters 
may  have  grown  irksome,  and  who  cov 
ets  larger  dimensions  of  shelter,  be  too 
hasty  in  deciding  that  the  minister  was 
wrong.  Did  you  ever  see  the  house  that 
Hawthorne  lived  in  at  Lenox  ?  Did  you 
ever  see  Emerson's  house  at  Concord  ? 
They  are  good  houses  for  Americans  to 
know  and  remember.  They  permitted 
thought. 

A  big  house  is  one  of  the  greediest 

97 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


cormorants  which  can  light  upon  a  little 
income.  Backs  may  go  threadbare  and 
stomachs  may  worry  along  on  indiffer 
ent  filling,  but  a  house  will  have  things, 
though  its  occupants  go  without.  It  is 
rarely  complete,  and  constantly  tempts 
the  imagination  to  flights  in  brick  and 
dreams  in  lath  and  plaster.  It  develops 
annual  thirsts  for  paint  and  wall-paper, 
at  least,  if  not  for  marble  and  wood-carv 
ing.  The  plumbing  in  it  must  be  kept 
in  order  on  pain  of  death.  Whatever 
price  is  put  on  coal,  it  has  to  be  heated 
in  winter  ;  and  if  it  is  rural  or  suburban, 
the  grass  about  it  must  be  cut  even 
though  funerals  in  the  family  have  to  be 
put  off  for  the  mowing.  If  the  tenants 
are  not  rich  enough  to  hire  people  to 
keep  their  house  clean,  they  must  do  it 
themselves,  for  there  is  no  excuse  that 
will  pass  among  housekeepers  for  a  dirty 
house.  The  master  of  a  house  too  big 
for  him  may  expect  to  spend  the  leisure 
which  might  be  made  intellectually  or 
spiritually  profitable,  in  acquiring  and 
putting  into  practice  fag  ends  of  the 
arts  of  the  plumber,  the  bellhanger,  the 
98 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


locksmith,  the  gasfitter,  and  the  carpen 
ter.  Presently  he  will  know  how  to  do 
everything  that  can  be  done  in  the 
house,  except  enjoy  himself.  He  will 
learn  about  taxes,  too,  and  water-rates, 
and  how  such  abominations  as  sewers  or 
new  pavements  are  always  liable  to  ac 
crue  at  his  expense.  As  for  the  mis 
tress,  she  will  be  a  slave  to  carpets  and 
curtains,  wall-paper,  painters,  and  women 
who  come  in  by  the  day  to  clean.  She 
will  be  lucky  if  she  gets  a  chance  to  say 
her  prayers,  and  thrice  and  four  times 
happy  when  she  can  read  a  book  or  visit 
with  her  friends.  To  live  in  a  big  house 
may  be  a  luxury,  provided  that  one  has 
a  full  set  of  money  and  an  enthusias 
tic  housekeeper  in  one's  family  ;  but  to 
scrimp  in  a  big  house  is  a  miserable 
business.  Yet  such  is  human  folly,  that 
for  a  man  to  refuse  to  live  in  a  house 
because  it  is  too  big  for  him,  is  such  an 
exceptional  exhibition  of  sense  that  it 
becomes  the  favorite  paragraph  of  a  day 
in  the  newspapers. 

An  ideal  of  earthly  comfort,  so  com 
mon  that  every  reader  must  have  seen 

99 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


it,  is  to  get  a  house  so  big  that  it  is  bur 
densome  to  maintain,  and  fill  it  up  so  full 
of  jimcracks  that  it  is  a  constant  occupa 
tion  to  keep  it  in  order.  Then,  when 
the  expense  of  living  in  it  is  so  great 
that  you  can't  afford  to  go  away  and 
rest  from  the  burden  of  it,  the  situation 
is  complete  and  boarding  -  houses  and 
cemeteries  begin  to  yawn  for  you.  How 
many  Americans,  do  you  suppose,  out 
of  the  droves  that  flock  annually  to  Eu 
rope,  are  running  away  from  oppressive 
houses  ? 

When  nature  undertakes  to  provide 
a  house,  it  fits  the  occupant.  Animals 
which  build  by  instinct  build  only  what 
they  need,  but  man's  building  instinct,  if 
it  gets  a  chance  to  spread  itself  at  all,  is 
boundless,  just  as  all  his  instincts  are. 
For  it  is  man's  peculiarity  that  nature 
has  filled  him  with  impulses  to  do  things, 
and  left  it  to  his  discretion  when  to 
stop.  She  never  tells  him  when  he  has 
finished.  And  perhaps  we  ought  not  to 
be  surprised  that  in  so  many  cases  it 
happens  that  he  doesn't  know,  but  just 
goes  ahead  as  long  as  the  materials  last. 
100 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


If  another  man  tries  to  oppress  him, 
he  understands  that  and  is  ready  to 
fight  to  death  and  sacrifice  all  he  has, 
rather  than  summit ;  but  the  tyranny  of 
things  is  so  subtle,  so  gradual  in  its 
approach,  and  comes  so  masked  with 
seeming  benefits,  that  it  has  him  hope 
lessly  bound  before  he  suspects  his  fet 
ters.  He  says  from  day  to  day,  "  I  will 
add  thus  to  my  house  ;  "  "I  will  have 
one  or  two  more  horses  ;  "  "  I  will  make 
a  little  greenhouse  in  my  garden  ; "  "  I 
will  allow  myself  the  luxury  of  another 
hired  man  ;  "  and  so  he  goes  on  having 
things  and  imagining  that  he  is  richer 
for  them.  Presently  he  begins  to  real 
ize  that  it  is  the  things  that  own  him. 
He  has  piled  them  up  on  his  shoulders, 
.and  there  they  sit  like  Sindbad's  Old  Man 
and  drive  him  ;  and  it  becomes  a  daily 
question  whether  he  can  keep  his  trem 
bling  legs  or  not. 

All  of  which  is  not  meant  to  prove 
that  property  has  no  real  value,  or  to 
rebut  Charles  Lamb's  scornful  denial 
that  enough  is  as  good  as  a  feast.  It 
is  not  meant  to  apply  to  the  rich,  who 
101 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


can  have  things  comfortably,  if  they  are 
philosophical  ;  but  to  us  poor,  who  have 
constant  need  to  remind  ourselves  that 
where  the  verbs  to  have  and  to  be  cannot 
both  be  completely  inflected,  the  verb  to 
be  is  the  one  that  best  repays  concen 
tration. 

Lees  blame  Perhaps  we  would  not  be  so  prone  to 
the  rich  t  swamp  ourselves  with  luxuries  and  vain 
possessions  that  we  cannot  afford,  if  it 
were  not  for  our  deep-lying  propensity 
to  associate  with  people  who  are  better 
off  than  we  are.  It  is  usually  the  sight 
of  their  appliances  that  upsets  our  little 
stock  of  sense,  and  lures  us  into  an  im 
provident  competition. 

There  is  a  proverb  of  Solomon's  which 
prophesies  financial  wreck  or  ultimate 
misfortune  of  some  sort  to  people  who 
make  gifts  to  the  rich.  Though  not 
expressly  stated,  it  is  somehow  implied 
that  the  proverb  is  intended  not  as  a 
warning  to  the  rich  themselves,  who 
may  doubtless  exchange  presents  with 
impunity,  but  for  persons  whose  incomes 
rank  somewhere  between  "moderate  cir 
cumstances  "  and  destitution.  That  such 
102 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


persons  should  need  to  be  warned  not 
to  spend  their  substance  on  the  rich 
seems  odd,  but  when  Solomon  was  bus 
ied  with  precept  he  could  usually  be 
trusted  not  to  waste  either  words  or 
wisdom.  Poor  people  are  constantly 
spending  themselves  upon  the  rich,  not 
only  because  they  like  them,  but  often 
from  an  instinctive  conviction  that  such 
expenditure  is  well  invested.  I  wonder 

.  .      .  They  are  in- 

sometimes  whether  this  is  true.  convenient, 

To  associate  with  the  rich  seems  pleas-  anjfwajf> 
ant  and  profitable.  They  are  apt  to  be 
agreeable  and  well  informed,  and  it  is 
good  to  play  with  them  and  enjoy  the 
usufruct  of  all  their  pleasant  apparatus  ; 
but,  of  course,  you  can  neither  hope  nor 
wish  to  get  anything  for  nothing.  Of 
the  cost  of  the  practice,  the  expenditure 
of  time  still  seems  to  be  the  item  that  is 
most  serious.  It  takes  a  great  deal  of 
time  to  cultivate  the  rich  successfully. 
If  they  are  working  people  their  time  is 
so  much  more  valuable  than  yours,  that 
when  you  visit  with  them  it  is  apt  to  be 
your  time  that  is  sacrificed.  If  they 
are  not  working  people  it  is  worse  yet. 
103 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


Their  special  outings,  when  they  want 
your  company,  always  come  when  you 
cannot  get  away  from  work  except  at 
some  great  sacrifice,  which,  under  the 
stress  of  temptation,  you  are  too  apt  to 
make.  Their  pleasuring  is  on  so  large 
a  scale  that  you  cannot  make  it  fit 
your  times  or  necessities.  You  can't  go 
yachting  for  half  a  day,  nor  will  fifty 
dollars  take  you  far  on  the  way  to  shoot 
big  game  in  Manitoba.  You  simply  can 
not  play  with  them  when  they  play,  be 
cause  you  cannot  reach  •  and  when  they 
work  you  cannot  play  with  them,  be 
cause  their  time  then  is  worth  so  much 
a  minute  that  you  cannot  bear  to  waste 
it.  And  you  cannot  play  with  them 
when  you  are  working  yourself  and  they 
are  inactively  at  leisure,  because,  cheap 
as  your  time  is,  you  can't  spare  it. 

Charming  and    likeable   as   they  are, 
though         and  good  to  know,  it  must  be  admitted 

pleasant. 

that  there  is  a  superior  convenience 
about  associating  most  of  the  time  with 
people  who  want  to  do  about  what  we 
want  to  do  at  about  the  same  time,  and 
whose  abilities  to  do  what  they  wish 
104 


The  Tyranny  of  Things 


approximate  to  ours.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  matter  of  persons  as  of  times  and 
means.  You  cannot  make  your  oppor 
tunities  concur  with  the  opportunities 
of  people  whose  incomes  are  ten  times 
greater  than  yours.  When  you  play 
together  it  is  at  a  sacrifice,  and  one 
which  you  have  to  make.  Solomon  was 
right.  To  associate  with  very  rich  peo 
ple  involves  sacrifices.  You  cannot  even 
be  rich  yourself  without  expense,  and 
you  may  just  as  well  give  over  trying. 
Count  it,  then,  among  the  costs  of  a  con 
siderable  income  that  in  enlarging  the 
range  of  your  sports  it  inevitably  con 
tracts  the  circle  of  those  who  will  find  it 
profitable  to  share  them. 


VII 
WILLS   AND    HEIRS 


WILLS   AND    HEIRS 

|N  the  same  month,  not  long 
ago,  the  wills  of  two  very 
rich  men  who  died  in  New 
York  were  made  public.  One 
testator  left  a  widow  and  sev 
eral  children.  The  other  was  childless, 
but  his  wife  survived  him.  The  former 
left  the  whole  of  his  estate,  with  the  ex-  TWO  wills 
ception  of  some  unimportant  legacies,  to  contrasted- 
his  wife  and  children.  The  other,  after 
providing  for  his  wife  an  income  suffi 
cient  for  her  maintenance  in  reasonable 
comfort  during  her  life,  left  very  large 
bequests  to  colleges  and  hospitals.  His 
heirs-at-law  were  remembered  with  mod 
est  legacies,  and  his  executors  named  as 
residuary  legatees.  These  two  wills  be 
ing  probated  about  the  same  time,  and 
disposing  of  estates  believed  to  be  of 
approximately  equal  amount,  were  much 
compared  and  contrasted,  and  became 
109 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


the  subject  of  amusing  criticism.  The 
testator  who  left  money  to  the  colleges 
was  lauded  and  held  up  as  a  man  of  splen 
did  generosity  ;  while  the  fact  that  the 
other  departing  millionaire  left  nothing 
to  charity  was  put  down  in  evidence  of 
his  selfishness. 

Now,  it  is  a  very  good  plan  for  very 
rich  men  to  leave  bequests  to  charitable 
uses.  But  the  fact  that  a  man  leaves  a 
great  fortune  to  charity  by  will  is  no 
proof  at  all  that  he  was  a  generous  man. 
He  doesn't  give  his  own  money,  he  gives 
money  that  was  his — that,  perhaps,  he 
held  on  to  as  long  as  he  could,  and  that 
necessarily  found  a  new  owner  as  soon 
as  the  breath  passed  out  of  his  body.  It 
is  impossible  to  be  generous  by  will.  A 
will  does  not  give,  it  only  regulates  a 
division.  A  will  may  be  cited  in  evidence 
of  the  testator's  affection,  or  of  his  sense 
of  justice,  or  of  his  good  sense,  but  not  of 
his  generosity  —  unless,  indeed,  he  is 
known  to  have  denied  himself  and  saved 
and  accumulated  money,  not  because  he 
wanted  it  for  himself,  but  for  the  sake 
of  those  who  would  have  it  after  him. 
no 


Wills  and  Heirs 


Of  those  two  wills,  the  one  that,  on  the 
face  of  it,  might  readily  excite  criticism 
is  the  one  that  contains  the  bequests  to 
the  colleges  and  hospitals.  That  will 
might  convey  the  impression  of  a  lack  of 
cordial  relations  between  the  testator  and 
his  family,  or  that  he  was  a  man  who  did 
not  want  his  widow  or  his  legal  heirs  to 
have  anything  more  than  they  absolutely 
needed.  Of  course,  such  an  impression 
might  do  the  testator  great  injustice  ; 
but  we  are  not  considering  facts,  only  ap 
pearances.  As  for  the  other  will,  it  was, 
in  appearance,  the  will  of  a  man  who 
loved  and  respected  his  wife  and  his 
children.  Practically  it  was  such  a  will 
as  the  law  makes  for  men  who  die  in 
testate,  and  it  may  be  presumed  that 
such  a  will  accords  pretty  closely  with 
public  sentiment. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  the  name  of 
the  man  who  remembered  the  colleges 
will  live  long  after  that  of  the  man 
whose  children  get  his  money.  But 
that,  too,  is  a  hasty  conclusion,  and  one 
that  it  is  adverse  to  public  policy  to  con 
cede.  For,  first,  it  were  a  poor  compli- 
iii 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


ment  to  pay  any  man  to  say  that  the 
money  he  left  in  the  world  was  of  more 
value  to  it  than  the  children  he  left  ;  his 
money  is  something  apart  from  him,  but 
his  children  are  part  of  himself.  And, 
moreover,  that  a  man  is  better  employed 
in  building  up  a  fortune  than  in  raising 
sons  and  daughters,  is  what  many  Amer 
icans  seem  to  think  ;  but  the  very  fact 
that  they  think  so,  and  act  upon  that  opin 
ion,  seems  to  a  good  many  philosophers 
a  reason  to  fear  for  the  future  of  the 
American  people.  The  childless  man 
who  endows  colleges  does  well,  and  we 
do  well  to  praise  him.  But  we  cannot 
afford  to  let  such  praise  go  the  length  of 
disparaging  the  example  of  a  man  who 
raises  and  endows  a  family.  For  that 
husbands  should  honor  their  wives,  and 
fathers  should  take  thought  for  their 
children,  are  conditions  necessarily  prec 
edent  to  the  preservation  of  those 
"  family  stocks"  that  President  Eliot 
tells  us  are  of  such  importance  to  the 
republic. 

And,  apropos  of  wills,  it  has  happened 
to  me,  within  a  year  or  two,  to  look  on 


Wills  and  Heirs 


at  the  partition  of  several  considerable 
estates,  and  to  observe  in  a  general  way 
what  the  heirs  seemed  to  be  doing  with 
their  money.  They  were  an  assorted 
lot  of  heirs,  with  such  differences  in 
tastes  as  people  usually  have,  and  I  have 
been  surprised  at  the  similarity  in  their 
methods  of  primary  expenditure.  A 
reasonable  outbreak  in  clothes  was  one 
of  the  early  symptoms  of  those  that  Results  of 

J         J       i  an  obserua- 

carne  under  my  notice  ;  followed  in  sev-  fan  of 

.  .  heirs. 

eral  cases  by  investments  in  horses,  car 
riages,  and  hired  men,  in  houses  and 
domiciliary  improvements,  and  less  im 
mediately  by  the  purchase  of  increased 
leisure.  Following  the  leisure  came 
travel.  Out  of  a  score  or  so  of  these 
new  heirs  not  less  than  a  dozen  reported 
in  the  early  spring,  without  any  general 
previous  understanding,  at  an  expensive 
and  delightful  watering-place  in  Florida. 
They  have  since  gone  to  Europe  with 
a  unanimity  which  brought  to  some 
of  them  the  embarrassment  of  finding 
themselves  on  the  same  steamer  with 
co-heirs  with  whom  those  exasperating 
differences  which  are  so  apt  to  be  inci- 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


dent  to  the  distribution  of  property  had 
left  them  on  politely  antagonistic  terms. 
It  is  an  interesting  deduction  from 
the  behavior  of  these  heirs  that  if  you 
distribute  a  certain  number  of  millions 
among  a  certain  number  of  intelligent, 
adult  Americans,  you  can  forecast  the 
general  lines  of  their  expenditure  for  a 
year  or  two  ahead,  and  even  mark  upon 
the  map  the  places  at  which  they  may  be 
confidently  expected  to  appear  within  a 
certain  time.  Of  course,  your  forecast 
will  not  be  verified  in  all  cases,  but  if 
you  are  reasonably  intelligent  about  it 
the  accordance  between  what  you  ex 
pect  and  what  you  observe  will  be  close 
enough  to  give  you  a  new  idea  about 
the  smallness  of  the  world  and  the  in 
fluence  of  circumstances  and  personal 
example  on  human  action.  You  will 
find  that  people  newly  intrusted  with 
about  the  same  amount  of  money,  in 
the  same  country,  at  the  same  time,  go 
through  for  a  time  about  the  same  set 
of  motions.  But,  of  course,  they  get 
different  degrees  of  enjoyment  out  of 
them.  For  any  one  who  can  pay  can  go 
114 


Wills  and  Heirs 


and  do,  but  the  capacity  to  enjoy  is 
strictly  personal.  That  is  why,  after 
heirs  have  had  their  money  awhile,  and 
tried  the  amusements  that  every  one  is 
bound  to  try,  they  cease  to  fit  your 
generalities.  They  find  out  presently 
what  they  like  and  what  they  do  not 
enjoy,  and  then  their  individuality  re 
asserts  itself,  and  they  go  their  several 
ways  again,  with  tastes  and  purposes 
modified  indeed  by  money,  but  not  oblit 
erated  by  it. 


VIII 
THE  TRAVEL   HABIT 


THE  TRAVEL   HABIT 

[OU  probably  remember  who  it 
was  that  called  travelling  the 
fool's  paradise.     I  do  not  re 
call    his   name   at   this    mo 
ment,    and    my    books    are 
elsewhere  ;  but  he  was  a  man  of  sense, 
and  I  am  of  his  opinion.     I  say  /  am  of 
his  opinion,  for  this  is  a  personal  pro 
test.     I  dare  say  no  one  else  feels  as  I 
do   about   it,  or  has  the  same  sense  of 
injury.     Writing,    this   eleventh   day  of 
April — and  begging  humbly  any  future  l" 
reader's  pardon  for  carrying  him  so  far  home- 
back   toward    the   inclement    spring — I 
ask,  Where  is  the  Rogers  family,  with 
whom  it  is  my  habit  to  dine  on  Thurs 
days  ?     Where  are  the   Robinsons,  who 
invited  me  to  dinner  the  day  before  I 
went  to  New  York,  and  were  to  have 
renewed  the  invitation  when  I  got  back  ? 
Where  are  the  Joneses,  with  whom  I  dine 
119 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


on  Sundays  ?  Where  are  the  Browns, 
that  have  such  pleasant  girls  with  such 
attractive  Easter  hats  to  visit  them  after 
Lent  ?  Where  are  most  of  the  people 
who  are  folks,  and  keep  the  breath  of 
life  stirring  in  this  town  of  Wayback  ? 

The  Rogerses  !  The  Rogerses  went  to 
Florida  about  the  first  of  February,  and 
are  now  at  Fort  Monroe  on  their  way 
back.  They  may  be  home  again  by  the 
first  of  May.  The  Robinsons  went  to 
Mexico  last  week  with  the  Fitztoms. 
They  gave  no  bonds  to  return,  and 
won't  be  back  until — until  nobody  knows 
when.  The  Joneses  have  been  spending 
the  winter  in  the  South  of  Europe  and 
are  at  Monte  Carlo  ;  and  the  Browns  are 
still  in  Colorado.  What  sort  of  a  spring 
it  is  for  me  any  coherent  reader  can 
piece  out  of  what  he  imagines  about  the 
number  of  people  in  Wayback  who  are 
folkable  according  to  my  personal  taste. 

And  how  is  it  for  the  summer  ?  Some 
of  the  Wayback  tramps  will  be  at  home 
again  then,  perhaps — for  little  spells  of 
time.  I  hope  so  ;  but  in  the  summer  I 
like  to  get  away  myself  for  a  few  days. 
1 20 


Tbe  Travel  Habit 


But  where  to  ?  The  whole  family  of  Ire- 
sons — father,  mother,  aunts,  and  all  six 
of  the  children  —  who  used  to  make 
Pittox  so  lively  in  August,  sail  on  the 
City  of  Jericho  the  first  Wednesday  in 
June,  to  be  gone  until  September.  The 
Blenkinsops,  who  had  such  a  good  place 
at  Sopton  for  September,  have  rented  it, 
and  propose  to  spend  June  in  Japan  and 
August  in  Norway.  Alenson,  who  used 
to  come  up  for  our  September  tennis,  is 
going  to  the  Feejee  Islands  this  year 
instead.  He  says  he  wants  to  go  to 
some  place  that  isn't  next  door,  and  that 
it  takes  a  little  while  to  reach.  The 
Easterlings  have  hired  a  moor  in  Scot 
land,  and  the  Westons  a  castle  some 
where — in  Spain,  I  dare  say — and  New 
port  will  know  neither  of  them  this 
summer.  No  one  who  has  a  place  will 
be  in  it,  and  there's  no  out-of-the-way 
corner  of  the  globe  where  you  won't  be 
more  liable  to  run  up  against  your  next- 
door  neighbor  than  you  would  be  to  find 
him  next  door. 

For  my  part  I  protest  against  all  this 
straggling  and  globe-trotting.     If  there 

121 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


were  any  limit  or  end,  or  any  legitimate 
purpose  to  it,  it  might  be  tolerated. 
But  there  is  not.  It  is  simply  a  return 
to  vagrancy  and  nomadism.  The  same 
people  who  are  doing  all  this  straggling 
this  year  will  be  at  it  again  next  year,  or 
the  year  after  at  the  outside.  Once  the 
habit  is  formed  they  never  stay  at  home 
except  for  so  long  as  suffices  for  nec 
essary  measures  of  financial  retrieve- 
ment. 

Of  course,  there  is  some  use  in  travel. 
It  is  instructive  to  have  seen  the  world 
and  to  know  what  is  in  it.  It  gives  the 
means  of  making  comparisons,  imparts 
culture,  and  opens  the  eyes  generally. 
But  these  contemporary  tramps  of  ours 
have  long  since  passed  the  stage  of 
learning  anything.  Their  notion  of 
travel  is  rest  and  repairs,  and  to  have 
fun — good  things  in  their  way,  but  by 
this  generation  inordinately  pursued.  I 
say  they  are  a  frivolous  lot — our  tramps  ; 
that  they  try  to  dodge  life ;  that  by 
keeping  perpetually  on  the  go  they  suc 
ceed  in  evading  the  habits  of  work  and 
the  natural  ties  that  stay-at-home  people 

122 


The  Travel  Habit 


have  to  form,  and  the  responsibilities 
that  they  have  to  share. 

In  conversation  two  years  ago  with 
this  expostulator,  an  eminent  man  of  let 
ters  said  that  he  had  travelled  thor 
oughly  abroad  some  thirty  years  ago, 
and  got  great  benefit  from  it,  but  had 
not  been  to  Europe  since.  "  My  doc 
tor,"  he  said,  "  said  to  me  a  number  of 
years  ago,  '  You  must  absolutely  stop  all 
work  and  go  abroad.'  I  said  to  him,  *  If 
I  quit  work  can't  I  stay  at  home  ? '  '  Oh, 
yes,'  he  said,  '  if  you  can  do  it.  What  I 
want  is  to  stop  the  work.  The  Euro 
pean  part  of  it  is  not  essential/  So  I 
stayed  at  home,  and  hardly  made  a  mark 
with  a  pen  for  six  months." 

Here  was  a  man  who  might  have  gone 
to  Europe  and  didn't.  The  excuse  came 
to  him  ready-made  ;  he  had  the  inevi 
table  doctor  to  put  the  responsibility 
upon,  but  he  stayed  at  home.  It  was 
borne  in  upon  me  that  his  example  was 
one  that  ought  to  be  published  as  a  cor 
rective  to  that  vagrant  spirit  of  the  age 
against  which  Miss  Cobbe  filed  a  passing 
protest  when  she  wrote  :  "  The  gadfly 
123 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


which  pursued  poor  lo  seems  to  have 
stung  us  all,  and  we  flit  about  the  globe 
restlessly,  until  it  has  nearly  come  to 
pass  that  everyone  who  has  a  home  has 
let  it  to  somebody  else,  and  the  last 
place  to  expect  to  find  a  man  is  at 
home." 

One  curious  exponent  of  the  prevailing 

restlessness  is  the  practice  that  obtains 

so  generally  just  now  among  American 

cities  of  offering  bonuses  and  pecuniary 

special  in-    inducements  to  manufacturers  to  move 

^nomadic-     their     Plant        Aftei"     a     firC     that    burned 

ify-  down  part  of  a  sewing-machine  factory 

the  other  day,  the  owners  received  so 
many  proposals  from  aspiring  cities  that 
wanted  to  take  them  in,  that  they  were 
obliged  to  publish  a  notice  to  the  effect 
that  only  a  small  part  of  their  works  had 
been  burned,  and  that  they  were  not 
open  to  proposals  for  adoption.  Any 
factory  or  established  business  employ 
ing  labor  can  have  its  choice,  nowadays, 
from  a  long  list  of  cities,  new  and  old, 
any  one  of  which  will  give  it  a  site  for  a 
factory,  pay  the  expenses  of  moving,  and 
124 


The  Travel  Habit 


perhaps  contribute  substantially  toward 
the  construction  of  a  new  building. 
People  who  own  land,  or  are  engaged  in 
business,  in  cities,  realize  that  it  pays 
them  to  have  their  cities  grow,  and  they 
are  willing  to  hire  desirable  inhabitants 
to  come  to  them.  They  rely  upon  get 
ting  their  money  back  in  the  increased 
value  of  land,  or  the  general  increase  in 
business.  The  result  is  that  the  migra 
tory  disposition  already  so  pronounced 
in  these  days  is  intensified,  and  it  has 
become  a  familiar  thing  not  merely  for 
individuals  to  move,  but  for  great  ag 
gregations  of  working-men  to  shift  the 
scene  of  their  activities  from  one  city 
to  another,  sometimes  thousands  of 
miles  away. 

Time  was  when  where  the  average  man 
found  himself  living,  there  he  continued 
to  live,  unless  circumstances  of  excep 
tional  urgency  impelled  him  to  change 
his  residence.  It  is  different  now. 
Transportation  has  become  so  cheap, 
and  travel  so  easy,  that  the  ties  of  lo 
cality  sit  very  lightly  on  the  average 
American,  and  the  fact  that  you  find 

125 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


him  settled  this  year  in  New  York  or 
Pennsylvania,  affords  you  a  very  uncer 
tain  basis  for  expecting  to  find  him 
next  year  in  the  same  place.  When  you 
hear  of  him  again,  if  he  hasn't  moved  to 
Texas,  or  Tacoma,  or  Southern  Cal 
ifornia,  or  Maine,  or  North  Dakota,  you 
feel  that  he  must  have  had  some  excep 
tionally  good  reasons  for  staying  '  at 
home.  Men  used  to  wag  their  heads 
and  croak  about  the  inability  of  roll 
ing  stones  to  gather  moss.  We  have 
changed  all  that.  Moss  is  at  a  discount, 
and  there  is  a  premium  upon  rolling. 

Of  course  for  families  including  small 
children,  who  leave  the  cities  for  more 
salubrious  parts  in  summer,  and  even 
for  working-men  who  spend  their  sum 
mer  vacation  away  from  home,  there  is  a 
good  deal  to  be  said.  "  Everybody  "  goes 
somewhere  in  the  summer,  and  if  they 
can't  go  on  their  own  hook,  a  subscrip 
tion  is  got  up  to  send  them.  "  Every 
body  "  now  includes  all  the  city  minis 
ters,  the  college  professors,  the  wives 
and  children  of  laborious  and  well-paid 
brain-workers  in  big  towns,  and  people 
126 


The  Travel  Habit 


generally  who  can  afford  it,  and  whose 
homes  do  not  happen  to  be  so  situated 
that  they  prefer  to  go  away  in  the  win 
ter.  The  summer  vacation  habit  with  a 
concomitant  change  of  air  and  abode 
has  taken  so  strong  a  hold  on  the  lucky 
tenth  of  the  population,  that  the  rest  of 
us  who  either  cannot  go,  or  can  only 
stay  a  fortnight  when  we  do  go,  should 
comfort  ourselves  in  our  restricted  con 
dition  with  any  solace  that  will  fit  our 
case. 

There  are  some  compensating  reflec 
tions  that  we  are  entitled  to  entertain. 
To  get  one's  mind  thrown  off  the  track 
and  jolted  into  new  intellectual  gaits, 
and  one's  liver,  too  ;  and  to  see  new 
people  in  new  places  and  hear  them  talk 
about  new  things ;  and  to  be  quit  of 
the  daily  grind  and  free  to  devote  the 
solid  part  of  the  day  to  frivolous  uses — 
those  are  enviable  privileges,  and  the 
best  of  them  is  that  when  they  have  the 
right  effect  it  stays  by  you  all  winter. 
But  if  you  can't  go  it  is  certainly  tut  many 
worth  remembering  how  sharp  the  jolt  ^S&ta/t 
often  is  when  the  intellectual  wheel  athome- 
127 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


leaves  the  rail.  It  is  so  much  easier  to  do 
to-morrow  what  you  did  yesterday  than 
every  day  to  face  the  responsibility  of 
keeping  yourself  pacified  with  novel  oc 
cupations  !  Then  at  home  you  know 
your  own  plumber,  and  can  recognize 
the  monsters  in  the  drinking-water  when 
you  see  them  under  a  microscope  ;  but 
when  you  go  away  you  become  the  cor 
pus  vile  of  sanitary  experiments  to  the 
precedent  conditions  of  which  you  were 
not  a  party.  As  an  involuntary  home- 
dweller  you  are  entitled  to  meditate  on 
all  the  cases  mentioned  last  autumn  in 
the  newspapers  of  persons  who  lan 
guished  on  regretful  couches  with  ty 
phoid  fevers  picked  up  in  a  summer 
quest  after  health.  And  if  there  was 
any  ice-cream  poisoning  done  anywhere 
in  a  summer  resort,  you  are  entitled  to 
remember  that,  as  well  as  any  and  all  of 
the  contagious  complaints  that  anybody's 
children  brought  home  with  them. 

So,  too,  as  to  the  moral,  intellectual, 
and   social  hazards,  which  are  really   a 
good  deal  more  terrifying  than  the  phys 
ical    ones.      If   there   are   rocks   in   the 
128 


The  Travel  Habit 


harbor   of  one's  home  there   are  buoys 
over  them,  or  at  least  you  know  where 
they  are  and  can  steer  clear  ;  but  once 
you  get  away,  unless  you  have  a  pilot 
for  every  place,  reasonable  caution  de 
mands  that  when  you  are  not  absolutely 
at  anchor  you  shall  spend  the  bulk  of 
your  time  up  forward  heaving  the  lead. 
There  is  your  husband,  madam — such  a 
good,  tame,  domestic  creature  at  home. 
Take  his  work  away  from  him  and  turn 
him  loose  to  find  himself  employments 
and  what  astonishing  things  may  happen 
to  him  !     Cocktails  !     Those  are  trifles. 
Kind  and  devoted  husbands   lured    un 
willing  to  the  mountain-tops  have  found 
affinities  there,  and  affinities  that  in  some 
cases  were  the  theretofore  devoted  wives 
of  other  men.    Surely  any  good  man  who 
has  one  wife  already  would  stay  at  home 
till  moss  accumulated  on  his  scalp  rather 
than  go  gadding  and  take  the  chance  of 
running    against    his    affinity.      To    be 
slaughtered,  or  partly  slaughtered,  in  a 
railroad  accident  on  the  way  is  bad,  but 
nothing   like  as  bad  as  to   arrive  safely 
and  find  your  affinity  awaiting  you. 
129 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


Wives,  too,  have  found  affinities  in 
their  summer  holidays.  Others  a  little 
less  unfortunate  have  developed  a  dis 
astrous  craving  to  get  into  society. 
Others  have  become  dissatisfied  with 
their  customary  raiment  and  incurred 
aspirations  pregnant  with  pecuniary  dis 
aster.  Maidens  have  broken  coins  with 
ineligible  youths  not  of  their  own  set  ; 
parents'  hopes  have  been  blighted  by 
the  collapse  of  eligible  sons  before  im 
possible  summer  girls.  The  rector  of  an 
affluent  Episcopal  parish  was  once  con 
verted  at  Bar  Harbor  and  became  a  Bap 
tist,  to  his  severe  pecuniary  loss  and  the 
manifold  detriment  of  his  family.  So,  it 
is  narrated,  a  Boston  physician  became 
infatuated  with  Christian  Science  during 
a  month's  holiday  at  Narragansett  Pier 
and  abandoned  his  practice  because  of 
conscientious  scruples. 

People  have  stayed  at  home  and  lived 
to  be  a  century  old.  A  shorter  experi 
ence  than  that  has  qualified  careful  ob 
servers  to  assert  that  when  they  have 
been  unable  to  go  in  search  of  change  a 
little  patience  has  enabled  them  to  en- 
130 


The  Travel  Habit 


joy  it  at  home.  They  even  say  that  the 
arrangement  known  as  the  seasons  has 
been  expressly  contrived  to  bring  whole 
some  varieties  of  climate  around  to  the 
doors  of  folks  who  wait  for  them.  They 
are  old  fogies,  such  people,  but  there  are 
compensations  about  their  way. 


IX 

NEWSPAPERS    AND    PEO 
PLE 


NEWSPAPERS    AND    PEO 
PLE 

HY  do  people  care   so    much  why  people 

1         *  .  care  what 

about  what  is  said  in  news-  new 
papers  ?  They  do  care,  es 
pecially  when  the  something 
said  is  said  of  themselves. 
My  friend  the  Judge  remarked  the  other 
day,  on  what  seemed  to  him  the  absurd 
fact,  that  when  a  young  man  of  ques 
tionable  wisdom  made  a  remark  you 
gave  it  such  attention  as  his  abilities 
and  the  accuracy  of  his  information 
seemed  to  warrant ;  but  when  the  same 
young  man  got  his  remark  committed  to 
type,  and  put  into  a  newspaper,  it  be 
came  clothed  in  an  authority  which  you 
felt  bound  to  respect,  and  did  respect 
more  or  less,  however  you  might  differ 
from  the  opinion.  But  the  fact  was  not 
so  absurd  as  the  Judge  thought. 

When  Brown  remarks  to  Jones,  "  Rob- 

135 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


inson  is  an  ass,"  that  is  one  thing. 
Brown  may  not  really  mean  what  he 
says.  His  remark  is  intended  for  Jones, 
and  very  possibly  he  counts  upon  cer 
tain  qualities  in  Jones  to  qualify  its 
force.  Beauty  lies  in  the  eye  of  the  be 
holder,  and  of  course  very  much  of  the 
force  of  talk  lies  in  the  listener's  ear. 
Then,  too,  when  Brown  makes  his  re 
mark  it  may  be  with  recognition  of  the 
chance  that  he  may  feel  differently  about 
Robinson  the  next  morning,  and  may 
recall  his  opinion  the  next  time  he  and 
Jones  meet.  But  when  Brown,  the 
editor,  composing  the  opinions  of  his 
newspaper,  has  his  disparaging  opinion 
of  Robinson  put  into  type  and  published, 
that  is  a  different  matter. 

In  the  first  place,  when  the  opinion 
once  gets  into  print  it  becomes  some 
thing  more  than  Brown's  opinion.  It  is 
the  opinion  of  a  responsible  business  es 
tablishment,  which  very  possibly  repre 
sents  an  investment  of  some  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars,  the  profits  of 
which  depend  in  a  considerable  measure 
upon  its  reputation,  which  in  turn  de- 
136 


Newspapers  and  People 


pends,  to  some  extent,  on  the  ability  of 
its  editor  to  say  the  right  thing  at  the 
right  time,  and  defend  it. 

And  to  anything  which  a  responsible 
newspaper  prints  attach  many  of  the 
qualities  which  thus  characterize  its  per 
sonal  remarks.  For  whatever  it  says  it 
must  be  ready  either  to  fight,  or  to  apolo 
gize  and  pay.  Inevitably  it  will  have  to 
apologize  sometimes  ;  but  the  apologies 
of  great  newspapers  are  far  between, 
and  are  apt,  when  they  come,  to  relate 
to  matters  of  minor  importance.  The 
obligation  to  be  right,  or  at  least  de 
fensible,  in  the  first  place,  is  seriously 
taken,  and  an  apology  is  a  confession. 

In  the  second  place,  when  an  opinion 
about  Robinson  gets  into  a  newspaper 
it  is  on  the  way  to  become  the  opinion 
of  that  newspaper's  readers,  and  from 
that  it  is  only  a  step  to  becoming  the 
opinion  of  the  public.  If  the  remark  is 
so  manifestly  true,  or  supported  by  such 
evidence  that  the  average  intelligence 
accepts  it,  it  comes  with  the  force  of 
revelation,  as  did  the  remark  of  the 
little  boy  in  the  fairy  tale  that  the  king 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


hadn't  his  clothes  on.  From  private 
opinion  to  public  opinion  is  as  great  a 
step  as  from  a  liquid  to  a  crystal  ;  but 
when  matters  have  come  to  the  right 
point  a  little  jar  will  often  precipitate 
the  change  in  an  instant. 

Robinson  may  bear  with  equanimity 
the  knowledge  that  Brown  in  talking 
with  Jones  has  called  him  an  ass,  but 
the  suspicion  that  Jones's  opinion  is 
public  opinion  may  reasonably  discon 
cert  him. 

And  speaking  of  the  newspapers,  and 
what  they  say,  a  person  whose  identity 
it  is  unnecessary  to  publish  here,  but  a 
very  important  person,  who  was  grum 
bling  the  other  day  about  those  ambi 
tious  paragraphs  in  the  untrammelled 
press  which  record  from  December  to 
May  that  Mrs.  Thompson  Jones  had  a 
party,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brown  Robin 
son  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rogers  Smith 
were  there,  expressed  himself  as  fatigued 
with  the  record  of  these  events,  and 
with  the  constant  repetition  of  the  same 
names  in  connection  with  them.  Why 

138 


Newspapers  and  People 


these  names  and  no  others,  he  wanted 
to  know,  and  argued  that  the  apparent  Oneofficeoj 
recognition  of  their  worth  conveyed  in  "»'««." 
this  exclusive  notice  was  one  thing  that 
lulled  these  people  in  the  delusion  that 
they  were  "the  folks,"  and  made  them 
feel  above   other  persons  whose  move 
ments  gained  less  notoriety.    He  wanted 
something  done  about  it. 

This,  to  tell  him  that  he  is  fretting 
over  something  that  ought  not  to  dis 
turb  him.  When  he  goes  to  the  theatre 
does  he  complain  because  his  name  and 
yours  and  mine  are  not  on  the  play-bill, 
but  all  the  space  there  is  given  up  to 
identifying  a  lot  of  actors  who  are  not  a 
bit  more  worthy  as  mere  men,  when  it 
comes  down  to  real  worth,  than  we  are  ? 
Let  him  take  rich  society,  rich  New 
York  society  for  example,  from  the 
same  point  of  view.  The  persons  whose 
social  achievements  get  so  much  more 
notice  than  ours  may  not  be  really  more 
admirable  than  we,  but  they  are  occupy 
ing  the  stage.  So  far  from  being  vexed 
at  them,  he  ought  to  regard  them  from 
afar  off  with  grateful  emotions,  as  per- 

139 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


sons  who  are  employed  to  perform  social 
feats  at  their  own  expense  for  his  diver 
sion,  and  whose  operations  are  kindly 
set  forth  in  the  public  press  so  that  he 
can  easily  inform  himself  about  them 
when  personal  observation  is  not  con 
venient.  Not  the  books  in  the  Astor 
Library,  not^the  pictures  in  the  Metro 
politan  Museum,  nor  Cleopatra,  her  nee 
dle  in  the  Park,  are  more  distinctly  ours 
to  use  and  to  profit  by  than  these  Brown 
Robinsons  and  Rogers  Smiths.  When 
their  splendor  has  its  setbacks  it  is  for  us 
spectators  to  draw  moral  lessons  there 
from  for  our  use.  When  young  Thomp 
son  Smith  elopes  with  a  ballet-dancer 
we  can  wag  our  heads  as  we  read  about 
it  and  be  thankful  that  our  sons  are  not 
exposed  to  the  demoralizing  influences 
of  large  means ;  and  the  same  when 
Benita  Brown  Robinson  marries  some 
scarecrow  prince,  or  Lawrence  Perry 
the  Younger's  difficulties  with  the  gov 
ernors  of  the  Union  Club  are  advertised 
to  the  world.  Be  sure  the  recording 
angel  takes  regular  note  of  the  advan 
tage  it  is  to  us  to  have  these  rich  always 
140 


Newspapers  and  People 


with  us,  and  that  we  shaTl  be  held  to 
strict  accountability  for  all  the  profit  we 
ought  to  have  received  from  our  news 
paper  familiarity  with  their  ingoings  and 
outcomings,  and  all  their  vicissitudes  of 
experience. 

There  may  even  be  profit  for  us  in 
the  labors  of  a  certain  gifted  but  un 
scrupulous  gossip  who  writes  letters 
from  Gotham  to  a  Western  newspaper, 
when  tattling  about  New  York's  eligible 
youths.  She  writes  : 

Lawrence  Perry's  son,  Lawrence,  Jr.,  will  in-  -phe  Laiv- 
herit  most  of  his  father's  wealth  and  much  of  his  rence 
prestige.  Perry,  Sr.,  is,  par  excellence,  the  leader  err?s- 
of  the  "  fast-and-swagger  "  set ;  he  sets  "  the  pace 
that  kills,"  which  the  ten-millionaires  follow,  and 
he  nevertheless  manages  to  keep  a  safe  hold  on 
his  own  millions,  which  Lawrence,  Jr.,  will  get  in 
good  time.  He  has  trained  the  young  fellow  to 
walk  in  his  footsteps,  to  be  an  exquisite  in  dress,  a 
bird  of  prey  among  women,  a  hard  rider,  a  deep 
drinker,  a  turfman,  a  gambler,  and  withal  a  keen 
business  man,  a  genial  fellow,  polished  man,  and 
a  pretty  good  friend.  He  will  marry,  doubtless  in 
his  own  set,  a  woman  as  congenial  and  gay-tem 
pered  as  himself,  who  will  not  be  jealous,  and,  as 
long  as  the  outward  appearances  are  observed,  will 
drive  him  with  a  very  light  hand  and  loose  rein. 

141 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


The  names  in  the  correspondent's 
paragraph  have  been  changed.  Very 
possibly  her  description  of  the  father 
and  son  whom  she  named  does  them  in 
justice,  but  the  type  that  is  portrayed  is 
real.  Alas,  alas,  to  how  many  thousand 
men  of  Gotham  does  the  life  of  the 
Lawrence  Perrys,  father  and  son,  seem 
the  ideal  of  an  existence  !  To  have 
abundance  of  money  and  health,  and  to 
spend  both  in  "  having  a  good  time  ;  " 
to  be  a  rake  and  a  turfman  ;  to  have 
the  habenduni  and  tenendum  clauses  of 
one's  nature  developed  to  the  degree  re 
quired  for  the  successful  management  of 
"business;"  to  be  a  graduate  of  Del- 
monico's  and  an  exponent  of  Poole's ;  to 
ride  hard  ;  to  drink  deep  ;  to  play  high  ; 
to  marry,  but  on  terms  of  such  mutual 
consideration  as  our  gossip  suggests. 
What  a  life  to  lead,  and  to  lead,  not  from 
necessity,  but  to  choose  as  the  highest 
good  !  A  life  of  glitter  and  go,  but 
shorn  of  tenderness,  of  self-denial,  of 
any  true  service  to  mankind. 

One  of  the  most  repulsive  characteris 
tics  of  a  great  city  is  the  presence  in  it 
142 


Newspapers  and  People 


of  the  Lawrence  Perrys  and  their  influ 
ence  upon  the  town,  especially  upon  the 
lads  thereof.  They  are  so  pervasive  and 
so  noisy  that  they  slop  over  everything. 
They  catch  the  eye  with  their  glitter. 
Their  coaches,  and  yachts,  and  palaces 
constantly  force  themselves  on  the  at 
tention.  It  is  hard  to  convince  little 
Joe  Brown  and  young  Jack  Robinson 
that  there  is  anything  better  in  life  than 
the  Lawrence  Perrys  have  got ;  and  it 
may  be  hard  presently  to  keep  Joe  and 
Jack  from  following  after  the  Perrys — 
albeit  afar  off,  as  near  as  their  circum 
stances  can  be  stretched  to  permit. 

The  Lawrence  Perrys  are  not  much 
beloved,  but  they  do  not  incur  the  full 
measure  of  the  contempt  that  they  de 
serve.  Much  of  the  obloquy  that  they 
should  monopolize  is  shared  by  that 
much  more  numerous  and  less  objection-  The  society 

,  ,  ,  ,  .     ...  young  man. 

able  product  of  contemporary  civiliza 
tion  whose  misfortune  it  is  to  be  known 
as  "  the  society  young  man."  Alas  for 
him,  there  is  a  haze  of  ambiguity  about 
him  which  makes  his  identity  obscure 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


and  doubtful.  People  question  his  ex 
istence  just  as  they  do  the  existence  of 
the  devil,  but  he  must  exist,  for  the 
newspapers  are  full  of  his  deeds.  Un 
like  Fitz  Greene  Halleck's  friend,  whom 
none  named  but  to  praise,  the  society 
young  man  is  rarely  brought  into  the 
conversation  without  being  injuriously 
dwelt  upon.  Whatever  he  may  have 
done  is  a  matter  for  speculation,  but  it 
must  have  been  a  dreadful  thing.  He 
has  no  friends.  Everybody  hates  him 
and  evilly  entreats  him.  All  the  ill-ad 
vised  infants  who  lack  putative  fathers 
are  attributed  to  him  ;  his  example  is 
held  up  to  Sunday  children  as  a  red 
light  on  the  road  to  perdition  ;  his  life  is 
pictured  as  a  conglomeration  of  patent- 
leather  shoes,  shirt-front,  and  opera-hats, 
irrigated  with  champagne,  punctuated 
with  cigarettes,  and  seasoned  with  a 
deceitful  smile.  The  enthusiasm  he 
inspires  in  his  traducers  is  admirably 
illustrated  in  some  recent  statements  of 
a  certain  Reverend  Douglas,  of  Mon 
treal,  who  lately  observed  in  the  course 
of  some  disparaging  remarks  about  his 
144 


Newspapers  and  People 


neighbors  :  "  The  society  man  will  lie, 
he  will  swindle,  he  will  cheat  at  cards,  he 
will  forge,  he  will  defalcate,  he  will  smile 
in  the  face  of  a  man  as  a  friend  while 
he  is  wrecking  his  domestic  honor,  and, 
as  I  have  known,  he  will  drink  the  very 
wine  that  charity  has  donated  for  his  dy 
ing  wife  and  fill  the  bottle  with  water." 

No  ordinary  villain  could  have  pro 
voked  such  reprehension  as  this.  Either 
the  society  young  man  is  a  dangerous 
foe  to  humanity,  who  ought  to  be  shut 
up,  or  else  he  has  been  maligned. 

Without  desiring  to  incur  the  dislike 
of  any  worthy  person  by  speaking  up  for 
such  an  outcast,  it  is  excusable  to  admit 
one's  impression  that  the  society  young 
man  is  not  really  all  Hyde,  but  has  his 
Jekyll  side,  like  the  rest  of  us.  He  is 
young  and  frivolous,  no  doubt,  but  he 
has  good  ideas  about  the  use  of  soap 
and  fair  prospects  of  learning  other  vir 
tues  as  his  experience  increases.  The 
censors  of  public  morals  ought  not  to  be 
after  him  too  fiercely  because  he  dances 
with  the  girls.  He  will  have  finished 
with  that  presently.  Indeed,  he  will 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


have  finished  in  great  measure  with 
most  of  his  present  amusements,  and 
will  either  be  dead  or  hard  at  work  try 
ing  to  support  his  wife  and  children. 
Butterfly  he  is,  perhaps,  but  grub  he  was 
and  grub  he  will  become  again  before 
you  know  it.  Be  kinder  to  him  while  he 
lasts,  his  turn  is  so  very,  very  brief. 


146 


X 

THE  MYSTERIES  OF  LIFE 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  LIFE 

|N  a  world  where  it  is  very  de 
sirable  to  be  entertained,  and  Cultivate 

a  few  mj>s- 

not  always  easy  to  find  en-  teries. 
tertainment,  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  got  out  of  a  dis 
creet  consideration  of  the  mysteries  of 
life.  They  give  one  something  to  the 
orize  about  in  odd  moments,  and  to  have 
theories  about  them  gives  one  an  inter 
est  in  whole  series  and  classes  of  facts 
which  seem  to  fit  in  with  such  theories 
or  to  upset  them.  If  the  facts  won't 
fit  the  theory,  then  there  is  the  theory 
to  change ;  and  to  have  one's  theory 
driven  into  a  new  shape  is  the  next  best 
thing  to  having  it  justified. 

If  existence  is  a  little  poky,  and  if  you 
live  in  a  quiet  place  and  cannot  afford  to 
own  horses  enough  to  completely  oc 
cupy  your  leisure,  or  if  you  are  restless 
ashore  and  too  poor  to  have  a  yacht,  or 
149 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


if  you  are  the  uneasy  husband  of  one 
wife,  or  the  wife  of  one  husband,  and 
think  it  immoral  to  flirt,  it  may  pay  you 
to  attach  yourself  to  one  of  these  mys 
teries.  Do  it,  not  necessarily  in  the  ex 
pectation  of  solving  your  problem,  but 
for  the  sake  of  pure  cogitation.  It  is  a 
natural  resource  of  a  human  being,  for 
to  puzzle  over  the  mysteries  of  life  leads 
to  a  reaching  out  after  the  great  centre 
and  solution  of  all  the  mysteries,  and  to 
the  establishment  of  relations  in  which, 
vague  and  slender  as  they  are,  the  mind 
of  man  finds  rest. 

There  was  a  little  tale  in  the  news 
paper  the  other  day  about  Mr.  Edison, 
that  he  held  up  his  finger  and  bent  it, 
and  asked,  "  What  does  that  ?  "  Fail 
ing  to  get  a  satisfactory  reply,  he  said 
he  was  trying  to  find  out  what  is  the 
force  that  pulls  the  strings  that  makes 
animate  creatures  move.  That  is  one  of 
the  great  mysteries — the  mystery  of  mo 
tion.  It  is  that,  we  are  told,  that  Mr. 
Keely,  the  motor-man,  has  been  brood 
ing  over  for  several  decades  past.  Mr. 
Keely's  experience  has  not  been  such  as 


The  Mysteries  of  Life 


to  encourage  any  poor  man  to  theorize 
on  this  subject  for  a  living  ;  neverthe 
less,  it  is  a  great  subject  for  a  mind  to 
dwell  upon  in  its  leisure  moments.  Sir 
Isaac  was  thinking  about  it  when  the 
apple  fell  and  gave  him  an  idea  that  was 
of  value  to  him,  and  has  been  useful 
ever  since.  There  is  always  this  advan 
tage  about  having  one's  mind  run  on 
something  in  particular,  that  even  if  it 
does  not  bring  down  what  it  is  aimed  at 
it  is  more  likely  to  hit  something  else 
that  is  worth  while  than  if  it  were  wan 
dering  aimlessly.  As  witness  the  useful 
ness  of  the  alchemists  to  the  science  of 
chemistry.  Even  if  Mr.  Edison's  mind 
fails  to  grasp  the  force  that  crooks  his 
finger,  it  is  very  possible  that  he  may 
puzzle  out  some  minor  problem  that  is 
worth  while.  Indeed,  it  is  reported  al 
ready  that  he  has  a  fascinating  theory 
that  attributes  an  individual  will  to 
every  atom,  and  declares  that  matter  is 
sentient. 

Another  mystery  of  captivating  quali 
ties  is  that  which  shrouds  the  relation 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


of  the  body  to  the  spirit.  It  was  the 
mystery  whose  partial  solution  led  Dr. 
The  cure  Heni7  Jekyll  to  make  the  disastrous 
mystery.  acquaintance  of  Edward  Hyde.  De 
scribing  his  speculations  on  the  duality 
of  man  and  sundry  chemical  investiga 
tions  that  supplemented  them,  Dr.  Jekyli 
writes  :  "  A  side-light  began  to  shine 
upon  the  subject  from  the  laboratory 
table.  I  began  to  perceive  more  deeply 
than  it  has  ever  yet  been  stated  the 
trembling  immateriality,  the  mist-like 
transience  of  this  seemingly  so  solid 
body  in  which  we  walk  attired.  .  .  . 
I  not  only  recognized  my  natural  body 
for  the  mere  aura  and  effulgence  of  cer 
tain  of  the  powers  that  made  up  my 
spirit,  but  managed  to  compound  a 
drug,"  etc. 

One  division  of  this  mystery  embraces 
the  subject  of  cures.  Once  get  on  the 
track  of  that  and  every  newspaper  story 
about  faith-cure,  or  any  of  the  varieties 
of  mental  healing,  becomes  a  thing  to  be 
weighed,  and  if  it  seems  to  have  sub 
stance,  to  be  held  in  mind  for  considera 
tion  and  future  use.  All  kinds  of  "  mir- 


The  Mysteries  of  Life 


acles  "  bear  on  this  mystery.  Hypnotism 
and  hypnotic  cures  are  intimately  mixed 
up  with  it.  Telepathy  has  to  do  with 
it ;  apparitions,  presentiments,  and  clair 
voyance  are  more  or  less  allied  to  it. 
Doctors,  quacks,  patent  medicines,  and 
all  sorts  of  "healers,"  regular  and  other 
wise,  bear  a  relation  to  it  that  will  come 
constantly  under  discussion. 

Anyone,  for  example,  who  is  thorough 
ly  awake  on  the  subject  of  the  cure  mys 
tery,  must  have  read  with  interest  the 
other  clay  that  the  Board  of  Health  of 
Massachusetts  had  recommended  to  the 
Legislature  of  that  commonwealth  to 
make  a  law  providing  that  all  persons 
engaged  in  the  healing  art  in  any  form, 
except  dentistry,  shall  register  within  a 
certain  time  in  the  office  of  the  clerk  of 
the  town  where  they  propose  to  prac 
tice,  describing  themselves,  and  giving, 
under  oath,  in  detail  their  courses  of 
instruction  in  medicine  and  the  names 
of  their  colleges  ;  false  entries  to  be  sub 
ject  to  the  penalties  for  perjury,  and 
failure  to  register,  to  fines  or  imprison 
ment.  It  seems  that  there  are  too  many 

153 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


quacks  and  irregular  healers  in  Massa 
chusetts,  and  the  regular  doctors  think 
it  time  that  they  were  suppressed. 

Without  any  pretence  of  faith  in  any 
doctor  who  is  not  regular,  without  ig 
noring  the  sound  objections  to  self-con 
stituted  physicians,  and  without  preju 
dice  to  a  sincere  intention  of  calling  in 
a  thoroughly  instructed  and  expert  prac 
titioner  whenever  occasion  demands,  it  is 
still  permissible  to  smile  amiably  at  the 
professional  antipathy  to  quacks.  The 
successful  physician,  with  exceptions 
which  happily  are  much  more  numer 
ous  than  they  were,  is  the  most  intol 
erant  despot  on  earth.  And  we  encour 
age  him  to  be  so.  We  are  vaguely  aware 
of  the  limitations  of  his  knowledge  ;  we 
know  that  he  has  to  guess  first  what  is 
the  matter  with  us,  and  next  what  will 
do  us  good,  and  that  though  there  are 
facts  his  acquaintance  with  which  helps 
him  to  guess  right,  many  theories  that 
regulate  his  professional  action  are  still 
hypothetical,  and  may  or  may  not  be 
correct.  We  know  that  he  has  dis 
covered  that  many  of  the  methods  his 

154 


Tbe  Mysteries  of  Life 


father  used  were  unwise  and  deleterious, 
and  that  the  doses  his  grandfather  gave 
often  hastened  the  result  they  were  in 
tended  to  prevent,  and  hindered  what 
they  were  designed  to  induce.  We  know 
not  only  that  he  is  a  man,  and  therefore 
fallible,  but  that  his  professional  science, 
like  his  father's  and  grandfather's,  is 
progressive,  and  is  still  very  far  from 
being  exact.  Nevertheless,  when  any 
thing  ails  us,  in  spite  of  all  we  know  of 
his  limitations,  we  fly  to  him  as  though 
he  were  all-wise,  and  do  as  nearly  what 
he  tells  us  to  as  our  flesh  and  our  pockets 
permit.  For  we  believe  that,  erring  and 
inadequate  as  he  is,  he  knows  more  than 
we  do,  and  that  his  knowledge  is,  on  the 
whole,  the  best  that  is  at  our  command. 

This  childlike  trust  in  our 'physicians 
is.  a  phenomenon  which  is  creditable  to 
us  and  to  our  doctors,  and  from  which 
we  both  get  benefit.  Experto  crede  is 
sound  advice,  and  ninety  -  something 
times  out  of  a  hundred  we  take  it  and 
do  well.  The  other  odd  times  either  we 
take  it  and  don't  do  well,  or  we  take  it 
with  misgivings,  or  we  don't  take  it  at 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


all.  The  world's  experience  has  taught 
that  in  certain  kinds  of  cases  the  wisdom 
that  has  finally  justified  itself  has  been 
the  wisdom  of  the  unlearned.  The  babes 
and  sucklings  of  knowledge  have  hit  up 
on  the  truth  that  the  doctors  have  not 
been  able  to  see,  because  their  learning 
has  stood  in  their  light.  Of  course,  if  a 
thing  isn't  so,  the  more  reasons  a  man 
has  for  believing  that  it  must  be  so,  the 
farther  he  is  from  the  truth,  and  the  less 
chance  there  is  of  its  percolating  into 
him.  Thus,  when  bleeding  was  the  great 
medical  cure-all,  the  worthy  physicians 
who  knew  exactly  why  it  must  be  the  one 
indispensable  remedy  were  really  in  a 
more  hopeless  bog  of  ignorance  than 
people  who  knew  nothing  about  medi 
cine  at  all,  but  simply  regulated  their 
A  weak  practice  by  the  light  of  nature.  Every 

point  in 

specialists,  man  to  his  trade  is  a  maxim  that  \ve 
habitually  respect,  in  that  we  don't  send 
our  horses  to  a  carpenter-shop  to  be 
shod,  nor  employ  a  gardener  to  look  after 
the  plumbing.  The  man  whom  we  ex 
pect  to  be  conversant  with  horseshoeing 
as  a  contemporary  art  is  the  blacksmith, 

156 


The  Mysteries  of  Life 


and  the  person  with  the  requisite  skill 
and  appliances  for  dealing  with  lead 
pipes  is  the  plumber.  But  if  the  con 
temporary  art  of  horseshoeing  has  a 
radical  flaw  in  it,  the  carpenter,  whose 
mind  has  not  been  prejudiced  by  mis 
taken  instruction  nor  his  natural  gump 
tion  perverted  by  malpractice,  may  be  a 
likelier  man  to  detect  it  than  the  black 
smith.  And  so  the  gardener  may  see 
that  the  plumber's  pipes  are  unsafe,  the 
plumber's  argument  and  usage  among 
the  best  plumbers  to  the  contrary  not 
withstanding. 

And  so,  ordinarily  sagacious  people 
come  to  make  instinctive  allowance  for 
the  prejudices  of  learning,  as  they  do  for 
what  the  unlearned  don't  know.  A  valu 
able  pocket  of  knowledge  on  some  par 
ticular  line  of  investigation  is  often  ac 
quired,  like  ambergris  in  whales,  at  the 
cost  of  a  considerable  degeneration  of 
the  rest  of  the  creature.  Even  so  great 
a  man  as  Darwin  had  to  give  up  such  in 
tellectual  valuables  as  his  taste  for  music 
and  his  interest  in  religion  in  exchange 
for  what  he  learned  about  deep-sea  fishes 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


and  the  habits  of  earth-worms.  Medical 
specialists,  especially,  come  in  for  a  de 
gree  of  chastened  mistrust,  and  are  in 
danger  of  being  regarded  as  intellectual 
cripples  whose  minds,  from  too  incessant 
application  to  one  class  of  phenomena, 
get  a  list,  as  the  mariners  say,  in  that 
direction. 

The  point  of  all  of  which  is,  that  hu 
manity  has  a  rational  ground  for  appeal 
not  only  from  the  medical  faculty,  but 
from  all  high  intellectual  courts.  Not 
only  does  perfect  wisdom  not  lie  in  even 
the  highest  learning,  but  the  cultivation 
of  microscopic  powers  of  the  intellectual 
vision  has  a  recognizable  tendency  to 
make  the  cultivator  intellectually  near 
sighted.  It  is  a  tendency  that  is  tacitly 
recognized  day  by  day  when  we  wonder 
if  some  person  on  whose  insanity  the 
experts  have  pronounced  is  really  de 
mented  or  not ;  or  if  there  is  really  vir 
tue  in  a  remedy  that  the  doctors  say  is 
bogus  ;  or  if  there  really  are  ghosts  after 
all,  or  miraculous  cures,  though  science 
says  there  can't  be  ;  or  if  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  is  a  mistaken  hypothesis,  in 

158 


The  Mysteries  of  Life 


spite  of  all  the  wise    men   who   believe 
in  it. 

In  every-day  practice  it  is  wise  for  us 
to  listen  deferentially  to  the  men  of 
highest  learning  and  to  act  upon  their 
advice,  but  it  is  neither  necessary  nor 
even  advisable  to  let  the  voice  of  author 
ity  wholly  extinguish  our  speculations, 
since  great  practical  benefit  has  come  to 
the  world  in  time  past  from  the  faith  of 
the  unlearned,  and  imaginings  which  au 
thority  has  ridiculed  have  finally  worked 
out  into  marvellously  fruitful  results. 

Undoubtedly    our    physicians    do    us 
good  ;  and  indeed  they  ought  to,  even  if 
they  knew  less  and  guessed  less  fortu 
nately  than    they  do,  else  were  faith  a  Extenuat 
much  less  potent  virtue  than   it   is  de-  ingfossibu 
clared  to  be.    But  it  is  one  thing  for  us  to  Ve'guia?' 
flock  of  our  own  accord  to  the  doctors,  '* 
and  quite  another  thing  for  those  profes 
sional  gentlemen  to  hold  that  we  shall 
come  to  them  and  to  none  else,  and  that 
we  may  neither  be  legitimately  born  nor 
die    legally,   except   with    their   concur 
rence.     If  we,  being  adults  and  possibly 
voters,  want  to  prescribe  for  our  own 

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Windfalls  of  Observation 


infirmities,  or  have  our  neighbors  pre 
scribe  for  us,  or  try  our  luck  with  patent 
medicines,  or  have  in  faith-curers,  Chris 
tian  scientists,  mind-curers,  hypnotizers, 
or  the  representatives  of  any  other 
school  of  therapeutic  endeavor,  does  not 
our  constitutional  right  to  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  warrant  us  in  such  experi 
ments  ?  There  are  many  reasons  for  be 
lieving  that  it  is  wiser  to  trust  a  regu 
larly  educated  physician  than  one  that 
is  irregularly  educated  or  not  educated 
at  all,  and  unless  the  irregulars  are  in 
at  the  cure  reasonably  often  they  need 
not  be  much  dreaded,  for  they  will  not 
get  much  custom. 

If  it  relieves  us  to  turn  now  and  then 
from  the  traditional  dangers  of  the  reg 
ular  physician's  half-knowledge  to  the 
confident  ignorance  of  the  quack,  is  it 
quite  fair  to  rule  that  there  shall  be  no 
quacks  for  us  to  turn  to  ?  Every  person 
with  a  new  theory  is  a  quack  until  the 
value  of  the  theory  is  demonstrated,  but 
if  all  the  quacks  are  arbitrarily  sup 
pressed  how  are  their  theories  to  be 
tested  ?  It  is  right  enough  that  the 
1 60 


The  Mysteries  of  Life 


medical  profession  should  be  a  despot 
ism,  but  in  the  name  of  much  that  we 
know  and  much  more  that  we  hope  to 
know,  let  Massachusetts  hesitate  before 
she  forbids  it  to  be  a  despotism  tem 
pered  by  quacks. 

One  danger  on  the  other  side  is  that 
misplaced  confidence  in  "  sure  cures " 
or  the  infallibility  of  new-found  methods 
may  cause  too-credulous  people  to  ignore 
the  dictates  of  common  sense.  For  fear,  ful 
for  example,  that  the  multiplication  of 
patent  processes  for  the  extirpation  of 
the  rum  habit  may  cause  unwary  indi 
viduals  to  suppose  that  it  is  no  longer 
a  strenuously  undesirable  habit  to  ac 
quire,  this  seems  a  reasonable  place  to 
speak  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of 
temperance.  Temperance  lecturers  and 
foes  of  the  demon  rum  have  spoken 
exhaustively  about  the  disadvantages 
of  inebriety,  but  not  half  enough  stress 
seems  to  have  been  laid  hitherto  on  the 
great  inconvenience  of  being  incapacitat 
ed  to  enjoy  the  reasonable  pleasures  of 
drinking. 

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Windfalls  of  Observation 


There  is  a  pretty  general  agreement 
of  the  authorities  that  a  man  who  has 
once  thoroughly  abused  his  privileges 
as  a  wine-drinking  animal,  never  can 
regain  them.  He  can  stop  drinking 
altogether,  but  a  moderate  and  whole 
some  use  of  wine  is  something  which 
he  may  not  safely  attempt.  If  he 
does  attempt  it,  conscientious  persons 
will  not  like  to  drink  with  him,  for,  of 
course,  there  is  no  pleasure  in  sharing 
the  cups  of  a  man  to  whom  alcohol, 
meshed  in  whatever  sunshine,  is  a  poi 
son.  A  reformed  drunkard  is  a  great 
deal  better  than  a  drunkard  who  has  not 
reformed,  but,  beside  a  man  who  has 
never  needed  reforming,  he  is  a  second- 
rate  thing.  One  considerable  source  of 
legitimate  gratification  he  has  used  up. 
There  is  a  weak  spot  in  him,  and  he 
must  so  govern  his  life  as  to  keep  it 
from  undue  exposure.  He  is  not  to 
drink  the  bride's  health  at  the  wedding, 
and  even  if  his  long-lost  friend  whom 
troublesome  he  hasn't  seen  since  he  left  college  hap- 
%remed.  Pens  into  his  office  he  cannot  go  out  and 
have  so  much  as  a  cocktail  with  him. 
162 


The  Mysteries  of  Life 


Of  course,  cocktails  are  detestable 
things  to  drink  at  all  times,  and  thrice 
and  four  times  detestable  in  office  hours, 
but  there  are  occasions  when  one's  feel 
ings  seem  to  demand  some  reasonable 
disarrangement  of  the  insides  as  an  aid  to 
expression.  Perhaps  it  is  a  survival  of 
the  old  habit  of  sacrifice  that  prompts  a 
normal  man  to  celebrate  joyous  occa 
sions  by  some  disturbance  of  his  vital  or 
gans.  At  any  rate,  there  is  no  doubt 
about  the  prompting,  nor  yet  that  the 
most  feasible  and  ordinary  expression  it 
finds  is  in  taking  a  drink — which  is  prob 
ably  the  foundation  for  Byron's  cele 
brated  aphorism,  that 

"  There's  naught  no  doubt  so  much  the  spirit  calms 
As  rum  and  true  religion." 

It  is  a  pity  about  the  man  who  cannot 
conscientiously  take  a  cocktail  whenever 
a  long-lost  friend  returns.  It  is  a  dis 
comfort  to  him  not  to  drink  the  baby's 
health  at  the  christening  ;  not  to  raise  a 
brimming  bumper  to  the  bride  at  the 
wedding  breakfast ;  not  to  roll  back  a 
decade  or  two  when  he  sits  down  the 
163 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


night  before  commencement  with  the 
remnant,  still  considerable,  of  the  band 
who  were  young  when  he  was.  So  far  as 
this  disuse  of  reasonable  daily  potations 
goes,  the  reformed  man  is  no  great  loser, 
but  possibly  even  a  gainer,  since  the  doc 
tors  are  coming  more  and  more  to  the 
opinion  that,  regarding  merely  the  neces 
sities  of  man's  health,  little  or  no  alcohol 
is  plenty  enough  for  him.  But  with  the 
great  occasions  it  is  different.  There 
are  not  many  of  them.  Not  often  at  all 
does  the  conscientious  workingman  hear 
nunc  est  bibendum  ringing  in  the  familiar 
tones  of  his  still,  small  voice. 

To  reform  is  indefinitely  better  than 
to  be  the  creature  of  a  perverted  thirst, 
just  as  amputation  is  better  than  to  suc 
cumb  to  gangrene  ;  but  the  amputated 
limb  is  permanently  off,  and  the  unde 
niable  inconvenience  of  not  having  it  is 
to  be  added  to  the  pain  of  amputation, 
as  an  excellent  argument  in  favor  of  tak 
ing  good  care  of  it  in  the  first  place. 


164 


XI 

MISSING   SENSES  AND 
NEW   ONES 


MISSING   SENSES   AND 

NEW   ONES 

MAN  died  the  other  day  of 
whom  it  was  told,  in  all  his 
obituary  notices,  that  in  his 
physical  equipment  there  was 
this  curious  defect,  that  he 
could  not  hear  the  sound  of  S,  or  of  the 
shrill  notes.  He  would  be  walking  in 
the  street  with  a  policeman  at  n'ght  TWO  senses 
sometimes,  and  would  see  the  officer  go  JJ 
through  the  motions  of  blowing  a  whis-  have- 
tie.  The  whole  neighborhood  might 
echo  with  the  shrill  noise,  but  not  a 
sound  would  reach  him.  That  was  bad, 
but  it  was  a  mere  bagatelle  compared 
with  another  thing  that  was  the  matter 
with  him.  The  poor  gentleman  had  the 
intellectual  defect  of  being  unable  to 
see  a  joke,  even  when  it  took  form  in 
the  newspaper  of  which  he  was  editor. 
One  day  one  of  his  reporters,  in  de- 
167 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


scribing  an  egg  of  extra  size,  mentioned 
that  it  had  all  been  laid  by  one  hen. 
He  sent  for  that  reporter  next  day  and 
asked  him  if  he  really  supposed  that  two 
hens  could  lay  a  single  egg  between 
them. 

That  two  inabilities  so  curiously  anal 
ogous  should  coexist  in  the  same  person 
furnishes  an  almost  irresistible  oppor 
tunity  for  the  construction  of  didactic 
parallels.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the 
unfortunate  gentleman  was  at  great 
pains  to  remedy  his  physical  defect  and 
to  obviate  its  consequences,  but  his  in 
tellectual — or  would  you  call  it  spiritual  ? 
— infirmity  he  seems  not  to  have  at 
tempted  to  cure.  It  shows  how  green 
our  civilization  still  is,  and  how  much 
the  world  has  to  learn,  that  no  treat 
ment  has  been  devised  to  remedy  a  de 
fective  sense  of  humor.  The  deaf  are 
taught  to  hear  with  their  eyes,  the  dumb 
are  taught  to  speak  with  their  fingers 
and  to  talk  actually  with  their  vocal 
organs.  If  the  blind  have  the  least 
glimmer  of  light  left  to  them  the  very 
utmost  is  made  of  it,  but  the  man  who 
168 


Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones 

cannot  see  a  joke  gets  no  help  at  all,  and 
is  exceptionally  lucky  if  he  even  meets 
with  sympathy.  Let  us  hope  it  will  not 
he  so  much  longer  ;  but  that  by  hypno 
tism,  or  Christian  science,  or  some  un 
expected  application  of  electricity,  the 
seat  of  humor  may  be  reached  and 
quickened.  Love  is  the  great  sweetener 
that  makes  living  tolerable  and  dying  a 
good  deal  more  comfortable  than  most 
people  think,  but  after  love,  is  there 
any  other  corrective  of  existence  that  is 
fit  to  compare  with  humor  ?  It  greases 
the  wheels  so  !  It  makes  so  many  bur 
dens  endurable  that  must  have  been 
crushing  without  it  ! 

And  if  the  lack  of  it  is  detrimental  to 
anyone,  it  is  so  above  all  others  to  an 
American.  It  will  not  be  seriously  dis 
puted  that  Americans  have  the  sense  of 
humor  more  generally  developed  than 
any  other  people  (unless  it  is  the  Irish) ; 
but  of  all  people  they  need  it  most,  for 
the  wear  and  tear  of  American  life  is 
prodigious,  and  the  best  friends  of  the 
American  climate  do  not  vaunt  it  as  a 
conservator  of  energy.  Irish  humor  owes 
169 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


its  development,  perhaps,  to  a  protracted 
scarcity  of  the  means  of  material  enjoy 
ment.  Where  people  cannot  find  pleas 
ure  in  what  they  possess,  or  what  they 
consume,  it  behooves  them  to  have  what 
fun  they  may  with  what  they  think  and 
say.  And  that  the  Irish  do  ;  as  witness 
Mr.  Frederic's  report  of  a  remark  of 
the  late  Baron  Dowse,  that  it  was  better 
to  have  a  small  career  in  Ireland  than  a 
great  one  in  England,  because  in  Ire 
land  when  one  said  funny  things  people 
comprehended  them,  and  that  made  life 
worth  living. 

Of  course,  when  humor  overflows  its 
limits,  and  from  being  an  aid  to  serious 
existence  becomes  its  end,  it  looses  its 
savor  and  ceases  to  be  of  use.  It  is 
no  longer  humor,  then,  but  something 
coarser  and  more  material.  It  is  not  the 
grease  on  the  wheels  any  more,  but  the 
load  on  the  wagon.  It  is  with  humor  as 
it  is  with  piety,  it  is  liable  to  degenerate 
into  self-worship,  and  then  it  is  all  up 
with  it.  "Very  great  is  the  difference," 
severely  says  Noah  Porter,  "  whether  we 
see  through  the  disguise,  the  look  of 
170 


Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones 

which  the  frivolous  Bohemian  can  never 
rid  himself,  or  the  broad,  swimming  eyes 
of  love  with  which  Hood  always  looked 
through  all  his  fun,  or  the  sad  earnest 
ness  into  which  Lamb  relaxed  as  soon 
as  he  had  stammered  out  his  joke  or  his 
pun."  Very  great  the  difference,  truly. 
The  publican  may  have  brought  his 
sense  of  humor  with  him  when  he  came 
out  of  the  temple,  but  the  Pharisee 
didn't.  His  was  lost.  Humor  is  incon 
sistent  with  his  frame  of  mind. 

Next   to    the  sense  of  humor,  which, 
after  all,  is  only  a  branch  of  sight,  the 
single  sense  that  seems  most  indispensa 
ble  to  man's   enjoyment,  though    not  to  Theaccm 
his  usefulness,  is  his  hearing.    The  great  tiishment 

.       .  .  ,     of  agreeable 

majority  of  people  can  see,  hear,  smell,  deafness. 
taste,  and  touch.  For  the  last  three 
senses  to  be  seriously  impaired  is  un 
common.  Multitudes  of  people  have 
imperfect  vision,  but  most  of  them  are 
so  helped  by  eye-glasses  that  they  make 
out  very  well.  Imperfect  hearing  is 
much  less  common  than  imperfect  sight, 
but  it  is  a  much  worse  scrape  when  it 
171 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


exists,  because  so  little  has  been  done  to 
help  it.  If  a  man  has  any  sight  left  in 
him  at  all,  the  spectacle-makers  can  fit 
him  to  enjoy  the  society  and  share  the 
amusements  of  his  fellows  ;  but  if  he  is 
deaf,  even  in  moderation,  he  may  as  well 
make  up  his  mind  to  be  in  a  considerable 
measure  independent  of  society.  It  was 
a  deaf  person  who  was  asked  in  what  he 
took  the  most  pleasure,  and  replied  :  "  In 
reading,  eating  and  drinking,  the  sight 
of  my  children,  games  and  sports,  and  in 
the  prospect  of  death."  It  was  another 
deaf  man  who  spoke  of  the  measure  of 
satisfaction  he  found  in  talking  with  a 
single  companion  ;  but  he  added,  "  But 
hell  comes  into  the  room  with  the  third 
person." 

To  be  handsomely  and  agreeably  deaf  is 
a  very  elegant  accomplishment,  fit  to  ex 
ercise  social  talents  of  a  high  order.  The 
person  who  aspires  to  it  must  check,  in  a 
considerable  measure,  a  deaf  person's 
natural  tendency  to  shun  society  and 
flock  by  himself.  He  must  continue  to 
mix  with  his  fellows,  and  when  he  does 
so,  must  in  so  far  conceal  his  infirmity 
172 


Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones 

as  to  make  it  a  cause  of  discomfort  to 
none  but  himself.  However  little  he 
hears  he  must  never  seem  unduly  desir 
ous  to  hear  more,  or  yet  indifferent  to 
what  is  being  said.  However  impossible 
it  may  be  for  him  to  take  part  in  conversa 
tion  he  must  neither  permit  himself  to  be 
bored  nor  to  appear  so.  It  is  his  business 
always  to  have  the  means  of  entertain 
ing  himself  in  his  own  head,  so  that 
while  he  continues  in  company  his  mind 
may  be  constantly  and  agreeably  occu 
pied,  however  little  he  may  hear.  In  al 
most  any  company  a  deaf  man  to  whom 
things  that  have  been  said  have  to  be 
repeated  is  a  check  to  free  discourse  ;  a 
deaf  man  who  is  eager  to  hear  and  can 
not  is  a  discomforting  sight ;  a  deaf  man 
who  is  bored  and  wishes  himself  else 
where  is  a  depressing  influence ;  in 
either  case  he  had  better  go  elsewhere. 
The  tolerable  deaf  man  is  one  who, 
being  in  congenial  company,  can  give 
pleasure  by  his  mere  presence,  as  he  can 
take  pleasure  in  merely  having  his 
friends  about  him.  His  thoughts  must 
run,  not  on  what  he  cannot  hear,  but  on 

173 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


what  he  sees  and  feels,  and  upon  the 
ideas  that  come  into  his  own  mind.  A 
deaf  man  who  is  always  able  to  entertain 
himself,  and  who  is  always  glad,  and 
never  over-anxious  to  know  what  is  go 
ing  on  about  him,  has  reasonable  grounds 
for  believing  that  at  least  he  is  not  an 
incubus  upon  society.  If  to  his  negative 
accomplishments  he  can  add  the  habit  of 
having  something  worth  hearing  to  say, 
he  can  even  hope  to  be  considered  agree 
able,  and  to  have  his  society  as  welcome 
to  ordinary  selfish  people  as  to  the  more 
benevolent. 

Whether  general  society  is  worth  cul 
tivating  on  these  terms  is  another  ques 
tion,  and  the  opinion  that  there  is  more 
of  self-discipline  in  it  than  amusement 
seems  not  without  some  basis.  Still, 
deaf  people  are  bound  to  keep  as  much 
alive  as  they  can,  and  it  does  not  do  for 
people  who  want  to  keep  alive  to  live  a 
life  of  too  much  solitude.  Therefore,  it 
is  a  good  plan  for  deaf  people  to  culti 
vate  a  taste  for  anything  that  has  a 
social  side  to  it,  but  to  the  successful 
prosecution  of  which  good  hearing  is  not 

1 74 


Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones 

essential.  Women,  on  whom  deafness 
doubtless  bears  more  hardly  than  on 
men,  and  who  usually  bear  it  with  better 
grace,  are  likely  to  find  profit  in  cultivat 
ing,  for  one  thing,  a  taste  for  dress  ;  for 
good  clothes  look  as  well  on  a  deaf 
woman  as  on  another,  and  give  as  much 
pleasure  to  the  wearer  as  if  she  could 
hear.  Moreover,  the  gratification  inci 
dent  to  fine  raiment  being  incomplete 
until  it  has  been  shown,  the  possession 
of  ravishing  toilets  is  a  constant  and 
wholesome  incentive  to  their  owner  to 
brave  the  discomforts  of  her  infirmity 
and  go  among  people  who  have  eyes  in 
their  heads.  The  cultivation  of  the  dress 
faculty  is  less  important,  but  not  unim 
portant,  for  men.  Both  men  and  women 
who  are  deaf  do  well  to  cultivate  a  taste 
for  all  sorts  of  games,  intellectual  and 
athletic.  A  deaf  man  can  play  whist,  or 
chess,  or  watch  a  horse-race.  So,  too, 
he  can  ride  a  horse,  pull  an  oar,  wield 
a  tennis-bat,  shoot,  bowl,  golf,  and,  with 
proper  coaching,  be  a  useful  member  of 
a  base-ball  nine. 

Deafness   tends   to   the   formation  of 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


fixed  habits  of  life.  It  is  less  exasperat 
ing  at  home  than  abroad  ;  among  famil 
iar  scenes  and  faces  than  where  every 
sight  suggests  a  question,  and  reminds 
the  would-be  questioner  that  whatever 
answer  he  gets  he  will  not  hear  it.  The 
traveller  needs  all  his  faculties.  The 
more  he  sees  the  more  questions  he 
wants  to  ask  ;  and  the  more  new  people 
he  comes  across,  the  more  eager  he  is  to 
test  their  quality.  That  is  why  the  fool's 
paradise  has  a  special  snake  in  it  for  the 
deaf  man.  He  can  travel,  of  course,  and 
get  pleasure  out  of  it,  but  he  does  it  at 
a  disadvantage,  and  will  hardly  choose  it 
as  an  amusement  exceptionally  fit  for 
him  to  cultivate. 

But  if  there  are  some  senses  a  man 
may  lose,  we  are  taught  in  these  days 
that  there  are  probably  whole  sets  of 
them  which  he  may  hope  sometime  or 
other  to  attain.  Some  are  to  be  re 
gained;  others  he  has  never  developed 
yet.  A  favorite  contemporary  explana 
tion  of  human  abilities  that  are  so  far 
out  of  common  that  they  seem  occult,  is 
176 


Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones 

the  suggestion  that  they  indicate  the 
survival  of  senses  or  instincts  that  be 
longed  to  man  in  his  earlier  stages  of 
development,  and  were  lost  as  he  pro 
gressed.  The  signs  of  such  lost  faculties, 
it  is  averred,  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the 
lower  animals,  as  when  the  carrier-pigeon 
shapes  its  flight  without  a  compass,  or  a 
dog  comes  home  a  hundred  miles  across 
country  without  asking  the  way.  The 
reason  why  such  faculties  have  been  lost 
to  humanity  is  understood  to  be  that 
men  have  ceased  to  need  them.  The 
development  of  language  has  permitted 
some  to  decay,  and  the  decreased  haz 
ards  of  human  existence  have  made 
others  unnecessary,  and  they  have  dis 
appeared  through  disuse.  In  their  place 
have  come  special  aptitudes  suited  to 
the  new  conditions  of  existence,  such  as 
the  reading  faculty,  a  miracle  of  optical 
training,  but  too  common  to  be  won 
dered  at.  That,  though,  fails  a  little  of 
being  a  perfect  illustration  of  these  sub 
stituted  faculties,  because  it  is  deliber 
ately  and  methodically  acquired.  There 
are  other  faculties,  and  the  signs  and 
177 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


promise  of  still  others,  which  are  more 
nearly  analogous  to  the  lost  animal  in 
stincts  in  being  a  sub-conscious  develop 
ment,  incident  to  the  conveniences  or 
the  peculiar  perils  of  contemporary  hu 
man  life.  One  such  curious  faculty  is 
the  familiar  ability  to  awaken  at  a  set 
time,  which  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  mul 
tiplication  of  time-pieces  and  of  the  need 
of  acting  on  the  minute. 

The  existence  of  a  still  newer  and 
more  curious  faculty  was  noted  the  other 
day  by  a  newspaper  correspondent,  in  a 
dissertation  on  contemporary  existence 
as  studied  in  the  exceptionally  contem 
poraneous  city  of  Chicago.  He  remarks 
two  developments  of  it,  which  he  calls 
The  cable-  the  bridge  and  cable-car  instinct.  A 

car  ana- 
bridge  in-  vast  amount  of  daily  local  travel  in  Chi 
cago  crosses  the  Chicago  River.  But 
commerce  makes  constant  use  of  the 
Chicago  River,  and  the  travel  across 
it  goes  over  draw-bridges.  The  well- 
known  propensity  of  draw-bridges  to  be 
open  when  you  want  to  cross  them  is 
reported  to  have  developed,  in  some  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Chicago,  an  instinct 
178 


Missing  Senses  and  New  Ones 

that  admonishes  them  when  a  bridge 
that  they  are  approaching  is  about  to 
turn,  so  that  they  can  hurry  and  cross 
it  in  time.  What  has  stimulated  the 
development  of  the  bridge  instinct  is 
that  in  Chicago  you  must  usually  cross 
a  bridge  to  catch  a  train,  and  to  be 
"  bridged "  means  usually  to  miss  the 
train. 

"  In  the  same  way,"  says  the  corre 
spondent,  "the  man  with  the  cable-car 
instinct  can  tell  when  a  cable -car  is 
coming,  even  when  the  bell  does  not 
ring,  and  so  save  his  life."  Of  course 
there  is  a  suggestion  of  humor  about 
these  cases,  but  there  is  nothing  scien 
tifically  amiss  about  the  development 
they  attest.  The  growth  of  a  cable-car 
instinct  (which  in  many  American  cities 
will  be  a  trolley-car  instinct)  is  likely  to 
be  promoted  as  other  instincts  are,  by 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Just  as  the 
infant  monkey  who  doesn't  clutch  the 
limb,  falls  and  is  killed,  so  the  American 
street  -  babe,  whose  trolley-car  instinct 
is  defective,  fails  to  grow  up.  Nor  is  it 
more  to  expect  of  the  sub-conscious  in- 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


telligence  to  take  note  of  passing  cars 
while  the  conscious  mind  is  otherwise 
engrossed,  than  to  expect  the  faculties  of 
a  sleeper  to  measure  the  lapse  of  time. 

It  is  only  within  the  present  genera 
tion  that  the  inability  to  see  an  electric 
current  has  been  a  source  of  peril  to 
man.  Surely  we  are  entitled  to  look  for 
an  instinct  that  will  meet  that  case  too, 
so  that  a  man  may  perceive  what  is 
going  through  a  stray  wire  before  he 
takes  hold  of  it  and  gets  killed. 


1 80 


XII 
A  SERIOUS  TIME  OF  LIFE 


A  SERIOUS  TIME  OF  LIFE 


IHAT  is  a  serious  time  of  life 
when  you  begin  to  realize 
that  the  man  you  are  is  not 
the  man  you  hope  to  become, 
but  the  man  you  have  shown  That  awk- 

.  .  .          ivardperiod 

yourself  to  be  ;  a  definite  quantity  with  when  you 
precise  limitations,  and  not  a  great  one.  done  any- 
We  all  compare  ourselves  at  greater  or  ****f***-a 
less  distances  with  people  in  books  and  in 
history.     There  is  a  time  when  it  is  a  de 
lightful  reassurance  to  learn  from  the  lives 
of  Keats,  Pitt,  Hamilton,  or  Henry  Clay, 
that  we  are  not  too  young  to  be  famous, 
and    that  men  no   older   than  we    have 
immortalized  themselves  as  poets  or  as 
statesmen.     Again  there  comes  a  time 
when  we  go  to  books  for  reassurances  of 
another  sort,  and  pluck  up  our  fainting 
hopes  as  we  read  how  Grant,  Sherman, 
Cromwell,    and     Nathaniel    Hawthorne 

183 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


reached  our  time  of  life  without  distin 
guishing  themselves  beyond  common, 
and  yet  lived  to  take  rank  among  the  im 
mortals.  There  may  be  hope  for  us,  we 
feel,  for  all  of  our  forty  odd  years.  And 
yet  the  late -blooming  soldiers  should 
not  encourage  us  unduly,  for  a  great 
soldier  is  only  developed  by  war,  and 
war,  through  no  fault  of  his,  may  be  very 
long  in  coming. 

The  serious  time  of  disquieting  reali 
zation  comes  to  a  man  between  these 
other  two  seasons.  He  has  passed  the 
time  when  any  deficiencies  in  his  work 
are  palliated  by  his  youth.  Nobody  can 
speak  of  him  as  "promising  "  any  more. 
His  blossoms  are  no  longer  a  credit  to 
him  ;  he  must  show  fruit,  or  admit  that 
he  has  none  to  show,  recognizing  that 
the  natural  inference  based  on  experi 
ence  is  that  a  man  of  his  age  who  has 
done  nothing  that  conspicuously  justi 
fies  his  existence  never  will  do  anything 
of  that  sort.  A  reasonable  progress  is 
still  possible  to  him,  of  course,  but  in 
the  natural  course  it  is  expected  to  be 
the  continuation  and  perfection  of  what 

184 


A  Serious  Time  of  Life 


is  behind  him.  A  new  quality,  new 
phases  of  character,  unsuspected  talent, 
he  may  develop,  but  no  one  expects  him 
to.  If  he  himself  expects  to,  it  must  be 
because  he  knows  more  about  himself 
than  he  has  disclosed.  The  story  of  the 
friend  of  William  H.  Prescott,  who  re 
gretted  that  that  gentleman's  abilities 
were  being  put  to  no  considerable  use  is  a 
case  in  point.  Prescott  was  approaching 
the  serious  period  without  showing  any 
results.  The  reason  was  that  he  was  at 
work  on  a  ten-year  task  of  history  writ 
ing.  Presently  the  results  came  all  to 
gether. 

Ordinarily  we  do  not  look  for  matured 
fruits  of  a  man's  intelligence  before  he  is 
thirty-five.  Before  that  age  he  is  at  lib 
erty  to  be  clever.  From  then  to  forty 
is,  in  most  cases,  the  serious  time  when 
he  must  do  something  important  or  else 
submit  to  be  stamped  as  ordinary.  If 
he  cannot  show  power  before  he  is  forty, 
no  one,  except  perhaps  his  wife,  is  going 
to  believe  it  is  in  him.  He  cannot  expect 
to  be  rated  after  that  either  by  his  hopes 
or  his  aspirations. 

185 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


A  good  many  men,  conscious  of  their 
impending  doom,  gather  their  forces 
during  this  period  for  a  sink -or -swim 
struggle  to  assert  themselves,  and  put 
their  fate  to  the  final  touch.  Among 
those  who  succeed  the  most  usual  sort 
of  success  is  financial.  Men  who  get 
very  rich  are  apt  to  make  their  fortunes 
late  in  life.  Whatever  the  sort  of  success, 
though,  that  comes  after  forty,  whether 
it  pertains  to  art,  or  literature,  or  gen 
eralship,  or  statesmanship,  or  finance,  it 
is  but  the  harvesting  of  a  crop  already 
sown.  Men's  purpose  after  the  serious 
time  is  to  reap  what  they  have  consci 
ously  or  unconsciously  sown,  and  carry 
what  they  have  got  to  the  most  advan 
tageous  market.  It  is  the  discovery  of 
a  fit  market  rather  than  the  production 
of  different  commodities,  that  has  been 
at  the  bottom  of  most  of  the  success  that 
has  seemed  late-won. 

There  are  some  persons  of  more  than 

the   average   abilities   who   will    excuse 

themselves  for  approaching  the  serious 

time  of  life  without  any  very  noted  ac- 

186 


A  Serious  Time  of  Life 


complishment,  on  the  ground  that  they 
have  always  had  to  drudge,  and  have 
never  had  any  spare  time.  It  may  be 
that  in  some  cases  the  excuse  will  be 
valid.  There  was  a  man  once,  as  every 
one  will  remember,  who  expressed  him 
self  as  indifferent  to  the  necessaries  of 
life  if  he  could  only  have  its  luxuries.  It 
is  a  mere  subdivision  of  his  sentiment  to 
say,  "  Give  us  our  spare  time,  and  we 
don't  care  what  becomes  of  the  rest." 

It  must  seem  sometimes  to  everyone 
who  accomplishes  anything,  that  what-  The  great 
ever  he  does  that  is  really  worth  while  "a^vTiue 
has  to  be  done  in  his  spare  time.  It  '£»£" 
seems  to  be  the  intention  that  what  a 
man  does  in  the  way  of  a  regular  task 
shall  just  about  keep  him  alive  and  en 
able  him  to  hold  his  own  ;  and  that  what 
ever  progress  he  makes,  if  he  makes  any, 
is  to  result  from  his  use  of  his  leisure. 
Of  course,  there  is  no  particular  fun  in 
plodding,  every-day  task-work,  and,  of 
course,  there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  exhil 
arating  in  progress  ;  so  it  is  reasonable 
enough  for  anyone  to  value  the  half- 
hours  he  gets  ahead  in,  more  than  the 
187 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


hours  he  spends  in  merely  keeping  up. 
There  was  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
superiority  of  the  fruits  of  leisure  in  the 
story  that  is  told  of  Lowell's  grateful  re 
ply  to  the  young  man  who  thanked  him 
on  his  seventieth  birthday  for  what  he 
had  done  as  a  teacher.  "  I  am  glad  you 
said  that ;  I've  been  wondering  if  I 
hadn't  wasted  half  my  life."  He  might 
have  been  sure,  though,  that  his  teaching 
time  had  not  been  wasted,  even  if  the 
taught  had  made  no  sign  ;  for  teaching 
was  his  task,  and  without  a  task  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  spare  time,  and  the 
things  a  man  can  only  do  in  spare  hours 
never  get  done  at  all. 

It  was  complained  at  the  New  York 
Horse  Show  last  fall,  that  the  horses 
could  not  jump  properly  because  there 
was  no  chance  to  warm  them  up.  A 
horse  who  has  it  in  him  to  jump  seven 
feet  isn't  going  to  do  it  off-hand  as  he 
comes  from  his  stall.  He  is  more  likely 
to  do  it  after  reasonable  exercise  at  five 
and  six  feet.  The  less  jumps  don't  tell  in 
his  record,  but  they  do  in  his  legs.  Of 
course,  there  can  be  too  much  of  a  good 
188 


A  Serious  Time  of  Life 


thing,  and  it  is  possible  to  get  all  the 
jump  out  of  him  over  four-foot  hurdles. 
In  like  manner,  it  is  possible  for  clever 
people  to  drudge  away  their  wits.  "  No 
task  no  spare  time  ;  no  spare  time  no 
progress,"  is  the  rule  ;  but  it  has  to  be 
remembered  that,  so  far  as  progress  is 
concerned,  too  much  task  may  prove,  at 
least,  as  bad  as  none. 

Of  course,  being  human,  we  all  want 
the  benefits  of  spare  time  without  the 
trouble  of  hoarding  it.  Most  of  us 
grumble  about  the  strength  we  waste 
over  unprofitable  tasks,  and  think  with 
greed  of  the  enormous  progress  that  we 
would  make  if  we  could  afford  or  dared 
to  put  in  all  our  time  in  doing  what  was 
really  progressive.  Some  of  us,  having 
the  courage  of  our  convictions,  do 
achieve  increased  leisure,  and  put  it  to 
good  use  ;  but  I  suspect  that  most  of  us 
need  some  sort  of  compulsion  to  put  our 
machinery  in  motion,  and  find  that  when 
our  other  tasks  have  been  abandoned 
our  spare  time  becomes  a  task  itself  and 
loses  its  character,  so  that  its  products 
are  not  the  same.  A  case  that  is  familiar 
189 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


is  that  of  Charles  Lamb,  eminent  among 
the  conservators  of  spare  time,  who 
longed  so  ardently  for  his  release  from 
his  clerk's  desk,  and  finally  found  his  in 
creased  leisure  so  troublesome  a  boon. 

Novels  have  been  written  in  the  spare 
time  of  their  authors,  but  people  who  get 
very  far  into  novel-writing  are  apt  to 
make  that  their  task  and  find  other  occu 
pation  for  their  leisure.  Novel-writing 
is  rather  too  continuous  to  be  an  ideal 
spare-time  employment.  It  isn't  one  of 
those  things,  like  religion,  in  which  peo 
ple  often  seem  to  make  better  progress 
by  working  odd  half-hours  than  others 
do  who  devote  their  whole  time  to  it. 

A  razor  doesn't  need  as  much  grinding 
as  a  broad-axe,  and  it  appears  that  a  very 
moderate  task  is  sufficient  to  put  some 
people  in  perfect  condition  to  use  spare 
time  to  the  greatest  advantage  ;  which 
amounts  to  the  same  as  saying  that  prac 
tically  all  the  work  of  such  persons  is  di 
rectly  progressive.  When  a  man  reaches 
the  point  where  he  requires  no  tasks,  can 
improve  only  three  or  four  of  his  spare 
hours  daily,  and  can  conscientiously  loaf 
190 


A  Serious  Time  of  Life 


and  invite  his  soul  the  rest  of  the  time, 
he  has  attained  an  enviable  pitch  of  hu 
man  felicity.  Old  men  are  that  way 
sometimes  ;  particularly  aged  poets. 
There  is  a  theory  that  the  imagination 
thrives  on  leisure,  and  that  imaginative 
writers  profit  better  by  being  very  mod 
erate  in  their  daily  demands  on  their 
wits.  A  favorite  illustration  of  this  the 
ory  is  the  reported  case  of  a  New  Jersey 
novelist,  of  high  contemporary  renown, 
who  writes  two  hours  a  day,  and  has  the 
rest  of  his  time  to  spare.  Nature  fur 
nishes  a  parallel  case  in  the  geysers  of 
the  Yellowstone,  some  of  which  take 
twenty-three  hours  to  get  ready  and  only 
spout  fifteen  minutes. 

But  spare  time,  when  it  comes  in  such 
bulk,  ceases  to  be  a  luxury,  and  it  usually 
happens  that  men  who  have  no  set  tasks 
make  tasks  for  themselves,  and  burden 
themselves  with  horses,  or  the  care  of 
property,  or  politics,  or  yachts,  or  hunt 
ing,  or  courtship,  or  flirtation  ;  being 
willing  to  endure  some  pretence  of  a 
regular  occupation,  for  the  sake  of  its 
blessed  intermissions. 
191 


XIII 

THE    QUESTION    OF    AN 
OCCUPATION 


THE    QUESTION    OF    AN 
OCCUPATION 

|NE  of  the  ingenious  persons 
who  make  interesting  para 
graphs  in  the  newspapers, 
put  into  a  Boston  paper,  the 
other  day,  a  tale  of  a  well-to- 
do  gentleman  who  had  a  son.  For  whom, 
when  he  came  of  age  and  had  finished 
with  the  customary  educational  prelimi 
naries,  his  father  cast  about  for  an  occu 
pation  ;  and  himself  having  no  business 
except  to  nurse  his  income,  he  wrote  to 
twenty-four  friends  whose  industrial  ef 
forts  had  resulted  successfully,  asking 
each  what  he  thought  was  a  good  busi 
ness,  or  profession,  for  a  youth  to  start  Nobody  likes 

rr,,  ,        ,  .     ^  ,     hisoiunjob. 

m.  The  paragrapher  s  story  is  that  each 
correspondent,  in  his  reply,  complained 
of  his  own  calling,  and  advised  the  in 
quirer  to  try  something  else.  Whereat 

195 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


the  father  was  disconcerted,  and  at  last 
account  the  son  was  still  idle. 

The  story  is  reasonable  enough  to  be 
true.  It  seems  not  to  lie  in  the  average 
man  who  knows  what  success  in  his  par 
ticular  line  of  activity  has  cost  him,  to 
believe  easily  in  another  person's  ability 
to  pay  the  necessary  price,  escape  fatal 
misadventures,  and  be  favored  by  the  in 
dispensable  lucky  chances.  Moreover, 
the  thing  that  he  has  done  looks  small 
to  him  when  he  recalls  the  continuous- 
ness  of  the  effort  that  accomplished  it. 
When  he  makes  his  estimate  of  results 
he  usually  counts  in  dollars  and  cents, 
and  is  apt  to  overlook  what  every  sincere 
moralist  is  bound  to  regard  as  the  most 
important  result  of  all,  the  effect  of  his 
exertions  upon  himself.  The  effort  which 
has  made  him  "  successful  "  in  the  more 
limited  sense,  has  developed  his  strength 
and  his  manhood.  That  was,  or  should 
have  been,  the  result  that  the  inquiring- 
Boston  parent  sought  for  his  son.  Recog 
nizing  that  to  nurse  an  income  is  an  old- 
gentlemanly  avocation,  and  hardly  fit  to 
bring  out  the  latent  qualities  of  youth, 
196 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

he  wanted,  doubtless,  to  put  his  youngster 
somewhere  where  burden-bearing  would 
make  him  sturdy  ;  but,  like  the  rest  of 
us,  he  wanted  the  sturdiness  to  be  inci 
dent  to  the  acquisition  of  satisfactory 
pecuniary  gains. 

Generally  speaking,  our  American  con 
ception  of  profitable  work  is  still  some 
thing  that  makes  direct  cash  returns. 
We  are  perfectly  aware  that  character  is 
valuable,  and  that  hard  work  is  almost 
indispensable  to  its  growth,  yet  our  im 
pulse  is  to  measure  the  value  of  labor  in 
coin.  Even  when  we  don't  need,  or 
really  care  about,  the  money  our  work 
might  bring,  we  are  apt  to  persist,  from 
mere  force  of  habit,  in  measuring  it 
primarily  by  this  standard,  and  second 
arily,  if  at  all,  by  its  results  in  ourselves. 
The  truth  is,  as  the  experience  of  the 
Boston  father  illustrates,  that  there  is 
scarcely  any  calling  the  mere  money  re 
turns  of  which  will  seem  to  its  successful 
professors  worth  the  pains  they  have  cost. 
"  I  have  had  to  work  at  this  job  ;  "  each 
of  the  Boston  man's  correspondents 
seems  to  have  said  ;  "  I  had  no  choice, 
197 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


for  I  had  to  make  a  living.  But  with 
your  son  it  is  different.  He  can  afford 
to  choose  something  else." 

There  is  one  sort  of  occupation  for 
the  well-to-do  which  does  not  get  the 
credit  that  fairly  belongs  to  it.  It  is 
a  prevalent  sentiment  that  men  who 
have  money  enough  should  get  out  of 
business.  What  is  the  use,  the  feeling 
is,  of  going  on  and  making  more  money 
when  you  have  enough  already  ?  But 
The  conven-  though  a  business  at  which  money  is  not 
ins  a  bust-  made  is  not  a  good  business  to  be  in, 
'family.  "  there  is  a  great  deal  more  in  business 
than  mere  money  making.  A  man  who 
buys  and  sells,  or  manufactures  and  sells, 
is  bound  to  keep  in  touch  with  his  fellow- 
beings.  He  is  bound,  too,  to  keep  his 
wits  about  him  and  to  stay  alive  ;  so  long 
as  he  has  control  of  important  commer 
cial  interests  he  has  power,  and  the  more 
complete  his  control,  and  the  greater  the 
interests  subject  to  it,  the  greater  the 
power.  There  is  no  other  high  induce 
ment  for  a  man  of  leisure  to  go  into  pol 
itics,  except  to  acquire  power  and  use  it 
wisely  ;  and  if  he  can  get  more  power 
198 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

in  selling  groceries  or  meat,  or  making 
paper  or  cloth  or  soap,  or  running  rail 
roads  or  banks,  it  seems  a  bootless 
change  for  him  to  abandon  those  occu 
pations,  or  fail  to  train  his  sons  in  them, 
merely  because  they  are  money-making 
employments  and  he  has  money  enough. 
No  family  is  so  rich  that  it  can  afford 
not  to  work.  If  its  members  cannot 
work  at  what  they  wish  to,  they  should 
do  what  poorer  people  have  to  do,  and 
work  at  what  they  can.  The  American 
sentiment  that  everyone  ought  to  have 
something  to  do,  is  a  sound  sentiment, 
and  the  Americans  who  live  up  to  it  are 
the  ones  who  are  the  most  useful  to  their 
country  at  home  and  most  creditable  to 
it  abroad.  Accordingly,  a  family  with 
an  hereditary  business  seems  to  be  in  an 
exceptionally  felicitous  situation.  Such 
a  family  not  only  has  possession  of  an 
industrial  machine  that  will  produce  an 
income,  but  it  has  a  training-school  for 
its  young  men,  and  a  constant  incen 
tive  to  perpetuate  itself  and  keep  up  its 
standard  as  a  family.  It  is  an  advantage 
about  a  business  that  it  is  exacting.  A 
199 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


family  may  own  townships  in  the  country, 
or  squares  in  town,  or  have  advantageous 
collections  of  securities  in  the  vaults  of 
a  bank.  Either  of  these  possessions  will 
stand  a  reasonable  amount  of  neglect 
without  very  serious  detriment,  but  a 
family  with  a  business  has  got  to  sit  up 
with  it.  Such  a  family  can  have  its  full 
share  of  play,  but  it  cannot  give  itself 
over  wholly  to  the  demoralizing  pursuit 
of  pleasure.  It  has  responsibilities,  neg 
lect  of  which  is  too  perilous  to  be  risked. 
Fortune  has  its  hostages.  It  must  keep 
up  with  the  times  or  be  run  over. 

To  be  sure,  the  brains  of  the  family 
may  run  out,  or  its  energies  fail  ;  and  in 
that  case  the  business  that  has  been  its 
feeder  may  quickly  become  a  drain.  If 
the  family  has  gone  hopelessly  to  seed, 
of  course  the  sooner  it  gets  out  of  active 
life  the  better.  To  close  out  its  business 
then,  is  common  sense  It  is  quite  a 
different  matter  to  cut  loose  from  it  while 
the  family  is  still  strong,  and  shows  no 
signs  of  enfeeblement.  That  is  to  invite 
degeneration,  to  throw  away  the  appa 
ratus  by  which  the  family  has  got  its 
200 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

strength,    and    wait   for   sloth    to  over 
whelm  it. 

But  there  are  many  rich  families  that 
got  rich  out  of  land  or  stocks,  and  have 
no  hereditary  family  business.  Every 
year  the  American  colleges  are  turning 
loose  increasing  numbers  of  the  scions 
of  such  houses  with  the  elements  of  edu 
cation  in  them,  but  with  ready-made  in 
comes  large  enough  to  live  on,  and  no 
inherited  business  obligation,  nor  any 
special  propensity  toward  any  particular 
kind  of  work.  A  particular  field  in 
which  all  good  Americans  hope  to  'see 

•*.    .  Politics 

such  young  men  venture  is  politics,  and  might  do 
especially  municipal  politics.  If  the 
American  young  man  who  loves  his  work 
for  his  work's  sake,  and  need  not  get  his 
bread  by  it,  should  elect  to  take  a  hand 
in  the  government  of  cities,  the  result 
might  be  comforting  to  that  respectable 
body  of  citizens  who  are  tired  of  being 
governed  by  men  who  are  in  that  busi 
ness  primarily  because  they  find  it  a 
source  of  income.  Of  course,  when  the 
man  who  loves  his  work  for  his  work's 
201 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


sake  comes  into  competition  in  municipal 
politics,  as  elsewhere,  with  the  man  who 
is  working  for  his  dinner,  his  coat  must 
come  off,  metaphorically  speaking,  if  he 
is  to  accomplish  anything.  That  is  the 
beauty  of  it.  It  would  be  hard  work  ; 
harder  than  yacht-racing  or  even  polo  ; 
less  vainly  amusing,  and  less  cheaply 
glorious,  and  fitter,  on  that  account,  to 
satisfy  the  aspirations  of  an  energetic 
and  devoted  spirit. 

But  for  all  that,  theoretically,  we  expect 
our  youth  to  go  into  politics  and  hope 
they  will,  it  cannot  be  said  for  us  that  we 
if  we  hadn't  giye  them  any  urgent  amount  of  practical 
s!p£i£>™fn  encouragement.     At  the  close  of  a  din- 
ac?an°Uti~     ner  given  the  other  day  by  the  friends  of 
an  eminent  railroad  president,  to  cele 
brate  his  completion  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century  of  railroad  work,  the  beneficia 
ry  got  on  unaccustomed  legs  and  told 
how   it  was   that  he   happened  to  be  a 
railroad  man  at  all.     He  had  been  a  law 
yer,  he  said,  with  decided  leanings  tow 
ard  political  life,  and  prospects  of  polit 
ical  success,  when  two  eminent  railroad 
men,  a  father  and  his  son,  approached 
202 


The  Qiiestion  of  an  Occupation 

him.  The  son  said  :  "  We  want  your  ser 
vices."  The  father  said  :  "  Politics  don't 
pay.  The  business  of  the  future  in  this 
country  is  railroading."  The  upshot  of 
it  was  that  he  dropped  politics  in  great 
measure,  and  became  the  attorney  for 
the  railroad  of  which  he  afterward  be 
came  president.  The  moral  of  Mr.  De- 
pew's  story  seemed  to  be  that  he  was  a 
brand  snatched  from  the  burning,  and 
that  Commodore  Vanderbilt's  word  fitly 
spoken  had  turned  him  from  certain  dis 
appointment  and  sorrow  to  a  success 
that  was  worth  while. 

The  fable  teaches,  or  at  least  sug 
gests,  how  very  much  we  Americans  ex 
pect  of  our  politicians.  Nine-tenths  of 
us  are  ready  to  admit  that  Commodore 
Vanderbilt's  observation  was  accurately 
truthful,  and  to  consider  Mr.  Depew's 
present  position  many  times  more  felici 
tous  than  it  could  have  been  if  he  had 
not  accepted  the  Commodore's  dictum 
and  taken  his  advice.  We,  too,  believe 
that  politics  don't  pay,  and  we  do  our 
best  to  make  the  facts  justify  that  opin 
ion.  We  take  it  for  granted  that  if  a 
203 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


man  can  do  anything  else,  he  had  better 
keep  out  of  politics,  and  that  if  a  man  of 
ability  does  go  into  politics  he  is  wasting 
his  opportunities,  and  is  probably  some 
thing  of  a  rascal  as  well.  We  not  only 
believe  that  our  contemporary  politics 
are  dirty  work,  but  by  our  attitude  tow 
ard  them  we  insist  that  they  shall  be 
dirty  work.  If  there  is  anything  in  public 
life  that  is  worth  attaining,  we  want  to  see 
it  go  to  someone  who  is  not  a  politician. 
We  want  our  collectors  and  postmasters 
to  be  business  men  who  have  proved 
their  competence  by  sticking  close  to 
business.  We  want  our  foreign  ministers 
to  be  gentlemen  of  polish,  skilled  in  let 
ters  and  languages,  and  uncontaminated 
with  too  much  familiarity  with  election 
eering  methods.  We  know  that  govern 
ors  and  presidents  cannot  be  elected 
without  organization,  but  we  insist  that 
the  proper  men  for  those  offices  are  men 
who  are  not  subject  to  the  sordid  influ 
ences  of  a  "machine."  Our  ideal  public 
officer  is  a  person  who  reluctantly  per 
mits  himself  to  be  dragged  from  the  con 
sideration  of  his  private  affairs  to  serve 
204 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

the  public.  Sharing  Commodore  Van- 
derbilt's  frank  opinion  that  "  politics 
don't  pay,"  we  regard  a  young  man  who 
proposes  any  sacrifice  of  his  pecuniary 
prospects  to  the  hope  of  a  public  career 
with  much  the  same  sort  of  pitying  con 
tempt  that  is  accorded  to  the  business 
man  who  neglects  legitimate  sources  of 
emolument  for  thedisastrous  excitements 
of  the  bucket-shop.  We  believe  that  a 
system  by  which  the  politicians  get  the 
offices  is  a  corrupt  system,  and  yet  we 
are  aware  that  the  offices  and  the  con 
sciousness  of  duty  done  are  the  only  re 
wards  that  political  industry  can  honestly 
attain  ;  and  we  know,  besides,  that  po 
litical  endeavor  takes  time,  and  that  the 
consciousness  of  duty  done  will  not  sup 
port  mundane  life.  If  a  man  neglects 
his  chances  of  worldly  well-being  to  carry 
the  Gospel  to  the  unconverted,  we  think 
he  is  a  saint  ;  but  if  he  neglects  them  to 
carry  the  ward,  we  think  he  is  a  fool,  or 
if  not,  a  knave  anyhow  ;  and  yet  a  coun 
try's  political  salvation  is  hardly  less  im 
portant  than  the  salvation  of  its  individ 
ual  citizens,  nor  should  politics  be  ranked 
205 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


much  behind  religion  in  the  opportunities 
they  offer  to  a  devoted  soul. 

Of  course  there  is  some  excuse  for  us. 
The  rapid  development  of  the  resources 
of  a  great  country,  with  concurrent  ac 
cumulation  of  great  fortunes  and  multi 
plication  of  opportunities  for  money-mak 
ing,  have  thrown  the  political  profession 
into  the  shade.  It  has  been  found,  es 
pecially  in  the  cities,  that  offices  as  a 
means  of  livelihood  have  had  attractions 
chiefly  for  second-  or  third  -  rate  men, 
who  have  done  much  to  justify  our  low 
opinion  of  politicians  in  general.  In  the 
country  districts,  where  money-making 
has  been  slower,  office -holding  has 
charms  fora  better  class  of  men,  and  has 
kept  in  better  repute.  But  both  in  and 
out  of  cities  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  the  professional  politician  does  a 
great  deal  better  by  us  than  we  have 
any  title  to  expect. 

We  scorn  his  avocation,  and  are  al 
ways  ready  to  believe  that  he  follows  it 
from  the  lowest  motives.  We  do  not  want 
to  do  his  work  ourselves  ;  that  would 
take  too  much  time  and  be  too  much 
206 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

trouble.  We  are  willing  that  he  should 
do  the  work,  but  if  there  are  any  legiti 
mate  office-holding  emoluments  of  the 
work  done,  we  want  some  "  respectable 
person  "  in  whom  we  have  confidence  to 
have  them.  Verily,  the  professional  pol 
itician,  when  he  comes  to  consider  what 
we  think  of  him,  what  we  expect  of  him, 
and  what  we  are  willing  that  he  should 
get,  must  be  amazed  at  our  assurance. 

But  perhaps  politics  will  pay  better 
presently  ;  if  not  absolutely  better,  at 
least  relatively,  because  other  things 
won't  pay  so  well.  And  of  course,  when 
politics  pay  as  well  as  law,  and  medicine, 
and  drygoods,  and  the  wholesale  grocery 
business,  we  shall  be  able,  without  self- 
reproach  or  a  loss  of  reputation,  to  take 
to  them  ourselves,  and  drive  the  poli 
ticians  out. 

To  find  a  fit  occupation  for  one's  work 
ing  years  is  in  the  nature  of  a  timely 
provision  for  old  age.  But  there  are 
other  provisions  of  that  nature,  which 
should  be  made  in  time  too,  and  are 
hardly  less  important. 
207 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


When  a  man  is  planning  for  the  com 
fort  of  his  mature  and  declining  years, 
there  are  some  things  that  he  arranges 
for  as  matters  of  course.  He  will  try  to 
plan  so  that  he  may  have  an  income  pro 
portionate  to  his  habits  of  expenditure 
as  long  as  he  lives,  and  he  will  arrange, 
if  possible,  to  have  the  income  continue 
just  the  same  to  himself  or  his  heirs  after 
he  is  tired  and  stops  working.  He  will 
be  apt  to  try  to  arrange  also  to  have  a 
wife  to  grow  old  with,  and  to  have  chil 
dren  about  him,  in  various  convenient 
stages  of  development,  to  keep  him  in 
touch  with  contemporary  life.  And  he 
will  form  the  whist  habit  or  the  habit  of 
reading  books,  and  take  reasonable  meas 
ures  not  to  have  gout,  or  dyspepsia,  or 
any  unreasonable  affection  of  the  liver. 

Such  precautions  any  prudent  man  will 
take  as  he  sees  the  propriety  of  them, 
and  many  others  too  ;  but  there  are  one 
or  two  comforts  that  he  may  miss  by  not 
appreciating  their  value  until  it  is  too 
late  to  provide  for  them.  A  particular 
luxury  of  this  sort,  for  which  a  timely 
arrangement  must  be  made  if  a  man  is  to 
208 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

have  it  at  all,  is  a  periodical  meeting  with 
the  men  who  were  young  when  he  was. 
In  order  to  secure  this  enjoyment,  it  is 
necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to  be  young 
with  a  considerable  number  of  persons 
associated  in  the  pursuit  of  some  common 
interest,  and  to  form  more  or  less  inti 
mate  relations  with  them.  They  must 
be  the  right  sort  of  people,  too  ;  people 
whom  it  is  not  only  edifying  to  know 
while  they  are  young,  but  who  promise  a 
development  which  will  make  a  fair  pro 
portion  of  them  good  company  in  their 
maturity.  Having  formed  such  an  ac 
quaintance  betimes,  the  habit  of  renew 
ing  it  periodically  should  be  started  early 
and  carefully  nursed,  the  periods  grow 
ing  gradually  less  until  they  become  an 
nual. 

The  simplest  way  to  accomplish  all 
this  is  doubtless  to  go  early  in  life  to  a 
good  college,  and  return  yearly  to  its 
Commencements.  But  where  that  has 
not  been  feasible,  the  same  end  is  often 
otherwise  accomplished,  as  by  being  a 
veteran  of  the  war,  and  meeting  one's 
fellow-veterans  annually  at  a  Grand  Army 
209 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


Encampment ;  or  by  being  an  earnest 
politician  and  getting  sent  pretty  regu 
larly  to  conventions.  The  points  that 
require  attention  are,  that  you  must  meet 
old  friends  who  were  young,  or  compara 
tively  young,  in  your  company,  and  from 
whom  you  are  ordinarily  separated.  The 
old  friends  whom  you  meet  every  day 
won't  do.  You  talk  to  them,  when  you 
see  them,  about  what  happened  yester 
day  and  was  in  the  morning  paper.  The 
sight  of  them  does  not  annihilate  time 
for  you  ;  your  intercourse  with  them  has 
been  too  constantly  contemporaneous 
for  that.  But  the  old  acquaintances  whom 
you  only  see  once  a  year  carry  you  back 
every  time  to  the  years  when  you  first 
knew  them. 

It  is  a  valuable  refreshment  to  the 
spirit  to  be  thus  transported,  and  one 
which  rightly  constituted  persons  prize 
with  increasing  appreciation  as  the  years 
pile  up  on  them.  After  a  man  has  found 
his  vocation  and  got  into  the  rut  of  it, 
existence  comes  to  smack  too  much  of 
the  tread-mill,  and  a  sensation  that  is 
quickening  and  pervasive,  and  out  of  his 

210 


The  Question  of  an  Occupation 

every-day  experience,  is  the  more  wel 
come  and  the  more  reviving  to  him  in 
proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  diffi 
culty  in  finding  it. 

Therefore,  if  you  intend  to  be  happy 
though  old,  form  the  habit  early  of  regu 
lar  attendance  on  some  periodical  func 
tion.  Have  a  taste  for  something  in 
particular,  and  stick  to  it  until  the  other 
enthusiasts  on  the  subject  are  old  ac 
quaintances.  Then  meet  them  persist 
ently  once  a  year,  and  presently  you  will 
have  a  habit  that  will  be  of  real  value  to 
you  when  you  have  passed  the  time  for 
making  new  friends. 


211 


XIV 
WOMEN   AND   FAMILIES 


WOMEN    AND    FAMILIES 

|R.  GRANT  ALLEN  has  been 
averring  in  the  magazines, 
that  we  are  not  giving  our 
young  women  the  right  sort 
of  education  ;  and  this  not 
because  our  educational  machinery  can 
not  do  what  is  expected  of  it,  but  because 
the  thing  that  is  expected  is  the  wrong 
thing.  He  declares  that  the  aim  and  re 
sult  of  female  education  in  America  and 
England  is  to  make  sprightly  and  intelli 
gent  spinsters,  whereas  what  ought  to  be 
its  aim  is,  not  to  make  spinsters  at  all,  but 
to  educate  young  women  with  a  view  to 
their  becoming  wives  and  mothers.  Mr.  ^^J*/ 
Allen  declares  that,  while  it  is  essential  for  mothers. 
to  the  best  interests  of  the  state  that 
ninety -something  women  out  of  every 
hundred  should  get  married  and  have 
not  less  than  four  children  apiece,  and 
while  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 

2I5 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


women  do  get  married,  the  whole  hun 
dred  women  are  educated  with  a  view  to 
the  best  interests  of  a  half-dozen  or  less 
of  them,  who  become  old  maids.  Mr. 
Allen's  blood  boils  at  this,  and  he  says 
flatly  that  the  women  who  do  not  mar 
ry,  though  charming  possibly  as  individ 
uals,  are  socially  and  politically  of  no  ac 
count  in  comparison  with  those  who  do. 
Mothers  are  what  the  country  needs,  he 
says,  and  he  calls  for  them  with  the 
energy  of  a  foundling  asylum,  while  he 
avers  that  literary  women,  school-mis 
tresses,  hospital  nurses,  and  lecturers  on 
cookery  are  the  natural  product  of  our 
system  of  education  as  it  is.  He  does 
not  deny  that  these  are  useful  products, 
but  he  does  deny  that  the  system  that 
produces  them  fits  our  needs. 

Mr.  Allen  also  records  his  fears  that 
if  the  theories  of  the  advanced  women 
are  not  checked,  the  invaluable  faculty 
of  intuition,  which  is  a  distinguishing 
feminine  characteristic,  will  be  educated 
away,  with  the  direful  result  that  men  of 
genius  will  cease  to  be  born.  For  the 
intuitive  faculty  pertains  to  genius  as 
216 


Women  and  Families 


well  as  to  femininity.  Genius  does  not 
stop  to  reason.  It  arrives,  by  a  sudden 
and  immediate  process  which  it  inher 
ited  from  its  mother.  It  knows,  it 
knows  not  how.  It  only  knows  that  it 
knows,  as  women  do. 

It  would  be  a  dreadful  pity  to  have 
genius  stumbling  about  in  limbo  for  lack 
of  a  woman  fit  to  be  a  mother  to  it.  Let 
us  hope  it  will  not  really  come  to  such 
a  forlorn  extreme  as  that.  Would  it  be 
inexcusable  to  derive  the  impression 
from  Mr.  Grant  Allen's  forebodings, 
that,  learned  as  he  is  in  natural  history, 
his  knowledge  of  the  human  female  is 
defective  ?  To  my  mind  she  seems  to 
be  constructed  of  much  tougher  mater 
ials  than  Mr.  Allen  imagines,  and  the 
influences  that  tend  to  make  a  man  of 
her  seem  enormously  overbalanced  by  Hefears 
those  whose  tendency  is  to  keep  her  a  JJgf^JJJ 
woman.  For  my  part  I  am  not  a  bit  don  her  se 
afraid  but  that  when  God  made  wom 
an  He  endowed  her  with  persistence 
enough  to  maintain  the  characteristics 
of  her  sex.  Monkeys  may  have  evo- 
lutionized  into  Herbert  Spencers,  but 
217 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


have  the  females  of  any  species  ever  yet 
evolutionized  into  males  ?  Of  course, 
there  are  masculine  women  ;  women  af 
flicted  from  birth  with  mannish  minds 
and  predisposed  to  channels  of  useful 
ness  which  are  more  commonly  navi 
gated  by  men.  Such  women  are  not  all 
Sally  Brasses  either.  Some  of  them 
even  presume  to  marry  and  have  chil 
dren.  But  they  are  exceptional  creat 
ures,  and  are  easily  counter-balanced  by 
the  feminine  men.  The  average  woman 
is  a  thorough-going  female,  and  is  not 
to  be  educated  out  of  it.  You  may  teach 
her  Latin,  you  may  let  her  operate  a 
type-writer,  or  teach  school,  or  work  in 
a  factory,  or  dot  off  language  by  tele 
graph,  and  become  as  independent  as 
you  please.  She  is  a  persistent  female 
still. 

Mr.  Allen  is  so  much  in  the  habit  of 
knowing  what  he  is  writing  about,  that  it 
is  not  safe  to  enter  any  general  denial 
of  the  truth  of  what  he  says  about  the 
schools,  but  he  seems  to  blame,  for  the 
condition  that  he  condemns,  those  ex 
ceptional  and  comparatively  unimpor- 
218 


Women  and  Families 


tant  spinsters  who  are  supposed  to  ben 
efit  by  it.  A  wiser  theory  appears  to  be 
that  in  this  case,  as  in  most  others,  if 
there  is  anything  wrong  about  women 

...          ...          ...         A  possible 

and  their  concerns  it  is  the  fault  of  the  danger, 
men.  So  prevalent  among  women  is  the 
amiable  wish  to  please  the  lords  of  crea 
tion,  that  it  may  reasonably  be  doubted 
whether  they  ever  do  anything  amiss  the 
motive  for  which  cannot  be  traced  to  this 
desire.  Though  Eve  ate  the  forbidden 
fruit,  it  is  nowhere  denied  that  Adam 
had  twitted  her  about  the  comparative 
unimportance  of  her  attainments,  and 
had  bred  in  her  a  restless  appetite  for 
miscellaneous  learning  which  made  her 
the  serpent's  easy  prey.  Is  it  not  so 
with  our  female  education  ?  If  there  is 
anything  wrong  with  it,  are  not  the  men 
to  blame  ?  Our  girls  cannot  be  mothers 
and  have  the  four  children  apiece  that 
Mr.  Allen  calls  for  until  they  have  first 
become  wives,  and,  in  order  that  they 
may  become  wives,  it  is  important  that 
they  shall  be  educated  on  such  a  sys 
tem  as  will  produce  results  such  as  men 
most  admire.  If  it  is  true,  as  Mr.  Allen 
219 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


says,  that  the  present  system  produces 
literary  women,  school-mistresses,  and 
lecturers  on  cookery,  it  will  probably  be 
found,  on  investigation,  that  it  is  pre 
cisely  those  species  of  educated  female 
that  the  unmarried  male  most  affects. 
No  doubt  female  education  is  all  wrong 
if  Mr.  Allen  says  it  is,  but  before  he 
sets  it  right  let  him  consider  whether 
a  safer  way  is  not  to  try  and  teach  a 
wiser  discrimination  to  his  males.  To 
find  as  the  result  of  an  educational  ex 
periment  that  he  has  a  lot  of  young 
women  on  his  hands  when  his  men  are 
not  disposed  to  marry,  would  be  an  aw 
ful  result ;  the  more  so  because  his  girls, 
being  all  educated  to  be  mothers,  might 
lack  the  special  training  necessary  to 
spinsterial  success. 

and  a  ^    Mr.   Allen   will    only   stir    up   his 

remedy.  males,  and  see  to  it  that  they  are  com 
petent,  faithful,  good  providers,  and  en 
dowed  with  approved  notions  as  to  the 
selection  of  mates,  he  may  cease  to  dis 
tress  himself.  The  proportion  of  the 
gentler  sex  who  insist  upon  reasoning 
by  logical  processes,  and  competing  with 
220 


Women  and  Families 


men  in  bread-winning  avocations,  will 
not  be  great  enough  to  afford  him  legit 
imate  distress.  Take  care  of  your  men, 
Mr.  Allen,  and  your  women  won't  have 
to  take  care  of  themselves.  And  if  they 
don't  have  to,  they  won't  do  it.  The 
fact  that  some  women  who  have  no  one 
else  to  take  care  of  them  are  taught  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  seems  a  remote 
reason  for  alarm.  A  woman  even  with 
blunted  intuitions  is  better  than  a  wom 
an  under  six  feet  of  earth. 

Directly  in  the  face  of  Mr.  Grant  Al-  Mr 
len's  complaint  that  culture  is  monopo-  «"•  als 
lizing  the  female,  comes  the  assertion  of  charges 
Mr.  Charles  Dudley  Warner  that  the 
American  female  is  monopolizing  Ameri 
can  culture.  Mr.  Warner,  who  is  a  liter 
ary  man  and  interested  in  the  sale  of 
books,  has,  possibly,  acted  from  inter 
ested  motives  in  letting  loose  this 
alarming  theory.  He  has  observed  the 
tendency  of  young  females  of  this  gen 
eration  to  aggregate  themselves  into 
groups,  meeting  weekly  for  the  culti 
vation  of  what  by  the  courtesy  of  the 

221 


Windfalls,  of  Observation 


males  they  are  permitted  to  term  their 
intellectuals.  Because  young  women 
run  to  clubs  and  associations  as  they 
do,  he  would  have  us  believe  that 
they  are  doing  about  all  the  reading 
that  is  being  done,  and  are  getting  the 
bulk  of  the  culture,  bating  a  few  stray 
spears  of  it  that  ministers  and  pro 
fessional  literary  men  pick  up  in  the 
exercise  of  their  callings.  Mr.  Warner 
insinuates  that  the  men  occupy  their 
working  hours  in  money-making,  and 
that  their  conversation  in  moments  of 
recreation  tends  to  relate  to  matters 
connected  with  business,  varied  by  such 
topics  as  "  horse  "  and  feeding,  and  he 
assumes  to  have  forebodings  as  to  what 
the  contemporary  young  man's  feelings 
will  be  when  some  girl  undertakes  some 
time  to  talk  to  him  about  some  new 
book. 

No  one  can  safely  tell  Mr.  Warner 
that  he  does  not  know  anything.  The 
Hartford  editor  is  too  considerable  a 
gun  to  be  spiked  in  any  such  peremp 
tory  manner.  But  one  may  venture  to 
say  softly  that  he  ought  to  know  better 
222 


Women  and  Families 


than  to  be  scared  at  the  thought  of 
those  clubs.  As  an  expert  in  feminine 
traits,  he  should  need  no  one  to  tell 
him  that  it  is  the  instinct  of  the  aver 
age  young  female  to  do  things  collec 
tively.  He  seems  to  think  that  she  gets 
up  clubs  because  she  likes  books.  Sim 
ple  male  !  The  truth  is  that  she  gets 
up  literature  because  she  likes  clubs. 
She  will  take  up  with  anything,  from 
Browning  to  working-girls,  that  gives 
her  occasion  to  aggregate  herself  of 
a  morning  with  other  young  females 
and  taste  the  sweets  of  companion 
ship. 

Not  that  one  can  blame  her !  Far 
from  it.  Woman,  poor  thing,  as  a  rule 
can't  go  to  an  office.  Her  day's  work  is 
an  irregular  sort  of  a  job  that  keeps  her 
more  or  less  at  home.  Her  clubs  and 
classes  take  her  out,  give  her  set  occu 
pation,  wake  up  her  faculties  and  do  her 
good  of  very  much  the  same  sort  that 
a  man  gets  from  selling  coal  or  stocks, 
or  discussing  measures  to  keep  the 
moths  out  of  last  winter's  unsold  wool 
lens.  But  the  idea  that  she  learns  so 
223 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


much  as  to  make  the  men  uncomfort 
able  is  a  mistake.  She  will  impart  to 
some  young  man,  in  the  first  place,  every 
thing  that  she  gathered  in  at  her  club, 
and  he  will  get  the  benefit  of  it.  And 
in  the  next  place,  the  only  people  who 
get  hold  of  book  knowledge  enough  to 
make  anyone  uncomfortable  are  those 
who  read  at  home  to  themselves,  in 
their  odd  minutes  and  their  even  hours, 
because  they  like  it. 

From  a  professional  point  of  view,  it 
which  is  is  mean  for  Mr.  Warner  to  go  back  on 
his  men.  They  are  his  true  friends  and 
supporters.  If  a  man  wants  to  read  a 
book  he  buys  it,  and  if  he  likes  it  he 
buys  six  more  copies  and  gives  them 
(not  all  the  same  day,  of  course)  to  six 
women  whose  intelligence  he  respects. 
But  if  a  club  of  fifteen  girls  determine  to 
read  a  book,  do  they  buy  fifteen  copies  ? 
No.  Do  they  buy  five  copies  ?  No. 
Do  they  buy — no,  they  don't  buy  at  all ; 
they  borrow  a  copy.  It  doesn't  lie  in 
womankind  to  spend  money  for  books, 
unless  they  are  meant  to  be  a  gift  for 
some  man. 

224 


Women  and  Families 


And  apropos  of  literature  and  petti 
coats,  an  accomplished  critic,  who  re 
cently  discussed  in  a  contemporary 
magazine  the  needs  and  possibilities  of 
American  fiction,  declared  that  the  com- 

.         Will  the 

mg  woman  in  American  novels  was  the  coming 
married  woman.  The  novel  of  the  fut-  ™c"iZn  "e 
ure,  this  gentleman  thinks,  will  begin  married? 
where  the  contemporary  novel  ends,  at 
marriage.  He  declares  that  it  is  vain  to 
hope  to  make  great  stories  about  young 
maidens  whose  experience  of  life  is  nec 
essarily  limited,  and  whose  ideas  and 
emotions  are  bounded  by  their  experi 
ence.  Women  of  maturity,  the  wives 
and  mothers  of  humanity,  are  bound  to 
be  a  great  deal  more  interesting  from 
their  greater  experience  of  life,  and  are 
vastly  fitter  to  be  the  leading  figures  in 
the  searching  and  comprehensive  fiction 
soon  to  come.  The  married  woman,  our 
critic  insists,  is  not  only  to  be  the  hero 
ine  of  the  future  American  novel,  but 
she  is  to  write  it  too  ;  since  in  the  po 
lite  circles,  it  seems,  where  married  wom 
en  have  leisure  and  opportunity  to  make 
themselves  of  interest,  women  are  the 
225 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


only  members  in  whom  are  combined  the 
knowledge,  taste,  and  leisure  requisite 
for  the  task. 

It  is  undeniable  that  married  women 
of  reasonable  maturity  have  commonly 
seen  more  of  life,  and  know  more  that  is 
worth  narrating  than  the  damsels  whose 
wooing  forms  the  staple  of  modern 
tales.  None  the  less,  as  a  subject  of  fic 
tion,  the  maid  has  several  decided  ad 
vantages  over  the  matron.  In  stories 
where  the  heroine  is  to  scour  the  Span 
ish  Main  for  pirates,  or  head  exciting 
quests  for  buried  treasure,  a  previous 
matrimonial  experience  is  a  matter  of 
indifference,  and  a  matron  will  do  at 
least  as  well  as  a  maid.  But  where  the 
substance  of  the  story  concerns  the  de 
velopment  of  affection  between  a  man 
and  a  woman,  to  start  with  a  marriage 
is  apt  to  make  awkward  work.  Who  is 
the  heroine  to  fall  in  love  with  ?  Her 
husband  ?  No  ;  that  seems  not  to  be 
the  intention.  Some  other  woman's 
husband  ?  More  than  likely  ;  or,  if  not, 
with  some  single  gentleman  of  means 
and  defective  occupation.  But  for  a 
226 


Women  and  Families, 


married  woman  to  have  a  man  in  love 
with  her  whom  she  cannot  marry  is  a 
misfortune,  and  for  her  to  fall  in  love 
with  a  man  not  her  husband  is  mis 
chievous.  Such  a  predicament  may  be 
excusable  in  an  occasional  story,  as  such 
predicaments  are  occasionally  excusa 
ble  in  real  life  ;  but  that  the  American 
fiction  of  the  future  is  to  be  a  record 
of  this  type  of  hazardous  experience  of 
women  is  a  gloomy  prospect  indeed,  and 
one  in  which  I  do  not  believe.  If  the 
married  woman  is  to  be  the  heroine  of 
the  coming  novel,  it  must  turn  on  some 
thing  besides  love-making.  It  must  be 
the  story  of  her  career  ;  of  her  profes 
sional  or  political  success  ;  of  her  pain 
ful  accession  through  toilsome  decades 
to  the  front  rank  of  the  doctors  ;  of  the 
money  she  made,  and  what  she  did  with 
it.  American  women  are  very  much 
alive  in  these  days.  There  is  no  spe 
cial  difficulty  about  writing  interesting 
books  about  them  without  using  men  at 
all,  except  as  puppets  or  lay  figures. 


227 


XV 
AS  TO   DEATH 


AS   TO    DEATH 

|O  many  people  are  dying 
these  days,  said  a  writer  of 
a  letter  of  condolence  dur 
ing  a  recent  epidemic  of  the 
grip,  "  that  one  feels  like 
apologizing  for  being  alive."  "  I  have 
lost  my  confidence  in  life,"  said  a  parent 
whose  fold  pneumonia  had  broken  into. 
"  So  have  I,  in  a  measure,"  was  the  re 
ply  !  "  but  I  find  my  confidence  in  death 
correspondingly  strengthened." 

We  are  very  slow  about  gaining  con 
fidence  in  death  —  curiously  slow,  con 
sidering  how  familiar  our  acquaintance 
with  it  is.  And  yet  life  is  an  exceeding 
complicated  task,  and  death,  to  us  who 
have  not  tried  it,  seems  wonderfully 
concise  and  simple.  No  complaints 
come  from  those  who  have  died,  and, 
what  is  more  to  the  point,  very  few 
shadows  of  dissatisfaction  are  seen  to 
231 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


hover  over  the  dying.  The  dread  and 
discontent  with  death  is  in  the  living. 
Doctors  tell  us  that  the  dying  rarely 
fear  the  change  which  they  feel  ap 
proaching.  Afar-off  death  is  a  mon 
ster,  but  brought  near  to  it  is  usually 
divested  of  its  horror,  and  becomes 
manifest  as  the  natural  thing  that  it  is. 

We  make  far  too  much  ado  about  it. 
To  have  friendship  and  companionship 
go  out  of  our  lives  is  a  real  loss,  and  our 
grief  for  that  is  a  natural  feeling  which 
we  would  not  wish,  as  we  need  not  hope, 
to  be  rid  of.  But  the  sensation  of  vague 
woe  which  survives  all  our  experience 
and  all  our  intelligent  conceptions  of 
the  matter,  is  something  to  be  recog 
nized  and  overcome.  Thej  instinctive 
feeling,  that  a  person  who  has  died  is 
the  victim  of  great  misfortune,  and  that 
we  who  survive  have  unwillingly  got 
the  better  of  him,  is  a  sensation  that 
civilized  and  religious  people  ought  to 
get  over.  "Poor  John,"  we  say,  "poor 
Mary,"  and  deck  ourselves  in  black, 
which  nine  times  out  of  ten,  whatever 
we  may  think  about  it,  is  the  expression 
232 


As  to  Death 


of  our  realization  that  a  dreadful  thing 
has  happened — not  to  us,  but  to  some 
one  whom  we  love.  If  we  ceased  feel 
ing  sorry  for  those  who  are  lost  to  us, 
and  could  confine  ourselves  to  mourn 
ing  for  ourselves  whose  the  loss  is,  we 
should  conduct  ourselves  much  more 
nearly  in  accordance  with  the  facts  as 
we  know  them. 

Nothing  that  we  know  about  death 
warrants  us  in  thinking  so  meanly  of  it 
as  we  do.  It  is  unfortunate  for  its  repu 
tation  that  it  is  associated  with  pain, 
sickness,  and  the  demoralization  of  our 
faculties.  Inevitably,  it  shares  the  repu 
tation  of  the  company  it  keeps.  If  it 
were  something  that  we  attained  as  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  our  fullest  strength 
and  energy,  we  should  be  bound  to  think 
better  of  it.  And  yet  there  is  no  con 
ception  of  death  which  is  tolerable  or 
reasonable,  which  does  not  involve  the 
belief  that  it  is  promotion.  When  char 
acter  seems  perfected,  and  achievement 
absolute,  it  is  the  next  step  ;  when  char 
acter,  still  far  short  of  perfection,  seems 
to  have  ceased  to  progress,  and  honor- 

233 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


able  achievement  from  whatever  cause 
seems  barred,  it  is  a  change  which  at 
least  gives  ground  for  renewed  hope. 
Of  some  who  die,  we  are  sure  that  the 
transition  was  from  one  sphere  of  useful 
and  progressive  activity  to  another.  As 
to  others,  we  feel  that,  so  far  as  we  see, 
it  was  a  gain  for  them  to  be  rid  of  flesh 
that  seemed  to  clog  their  spirits,  and 
perhaps  to  drag  them  down.  Looking 
at  people  with  open  eyes  and  reasonably 
full  knowledge,  and  weighing  what  life 
brings  them  with  the  penalties  they 
have  to  pay,  there  will  not  be  so  very 
many  of  whom  we  shall  feel  sure — even 
with  our  natural  prejudice  in  favor  of 
a  certainty  that  we  know  as  against  a 
chance  that  we  surmise  about — that  they 
possess  so  much  as  not  to  afford  to  take 
the  chance. 

Effort!  is  not  that  the  finest  thing  in 
life  ?  Effort  that  trains  the  mind,  that 
trains  and  subjugates  the  body,  that 
controls  and  directs  the  temper,  that 
makes  character  !  Is  life  without  effort 
of  value  ?  Is  life  valuable  when  effort 
ceases  to  be  possible  ?  And  yet  life  that 

234 


As  to  Death 


is  yoked  so  to  effort  surely  gets  to  be  a 
weary  business,  first  or  last.  "  This  rest 
is  glorious  !  "  said  John  Ericsson,  on  his 
death  -  bed.  There  was  no  grumbling 
there  !  Too  much  hard  work  had  been 
done  to  admit  of  that. 

"  Gladly  I  lived,  and  gladly  I  die," 
was  the  sentiment  of  the  confident  spirit 
whose  epitaph  Mr.  Stephenson  under 
took  to  provide.  That  is  the  right  feel 
ing.  We  are  not  half  glad  enough  to  be 
alive,  not  nearly  as  pleased  as  we  should 
be  at  the  prospect  of  dying.  We  should 
form  our  opinions  of  death  less  by  its 
concomitants  immediately  on  this  side 
of  the  grave,  and  much  more  by  the 
splendid  company  of  the  brave,  the  kind, 
the  wise,  and  the  true,  who  know  what 
we  can  only  guess  about  its  benefits. 


235 


XVI 

INCLINATIONS     AND 
CHARACTER 


INCLINATIONS   AND 
CHARACTER 

IN  its  eulogy  of  a  famous  and 
beloved  American,  who  died 
the  other  day,  a  contempo 
rary  newspaper  remarked 
that  "he  was  one  of  those 
fortunate  creatures  who  seem  never  to 
be  compelled  to  do  anything  that  is  con 
trary  to  their  inclinations."  That  Mr. 
Curtis  should  have  so  impressed  a  coeval 
observer  recalls  Lowell's  estimate  of  his 
friend, 

Whose  Wit  with  Fancy  arm  in  arm, 
Masks  half  its  muscle  in  its  skill  to  charm. 

If   he  seemed  to  do  nothing  that  he 
did    not   wish    to   do,  no   doubt   it  was 
partly  because   he    brought   a   gracious  tratedin 
performance  to  even  unacceptable  tasks; 
but  the  other  reason  may  well  have  been 

239 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


that  his  inclinations  were  so  uplifted 
and  disciplined  that  he  could  afford  to 
follow  them,  and  that  in  following 
straightly  after  duty  he  had  approached 
that  enviable  elevation  where 

Love  is  an  unerring  light, 
And  joy  its  own  security. 

Hardly  any  better  fortune  can  come 
to  a  conscientious  man  than  to  find  his 
inclinations  fit  and  feasible  to  follow. 
In  many  cases  it  happens,  through  no 
fault  of  his,  that  he  cannot  do  what  he 
wants  to.  Obligations  are  laid  upon 
him  that  he  is  bound  to  discharge,  and 
in  discharging  them  he  has  to  turn  his 
face  whither  he  would  not  choose  to  go, 
and  do  the  work  that  is  put  before  him 
rather  than  that  his  heart  is  in.  But  in 
very  many  other  cases  the  choice  is  with 
in  his  reach,  if  only  he  has  the  manhood 
to  make  it  and  the  resolution  to  stick  to 
it.  If  there  are  lions  in  his  path  he  must 
have  grit  enough  to  drive  them  out  of 
it,  even  though  that  is  a  tedious  process. 
When  the  choice  is  a  high  choice,  and 
240 


Inclinations  and  Character 

the  man  is  a  strong  man  in  earnest,  the 
lions  have  to  move  out.  The  average 
man,  of  course,  prefers  to  go  round 
them,  even  though  the  detour  gets  him 
into  byways  that  are  not  of  his  choice. 

By  far  the  most  potent  factor  in  these 
days  in  luring  high-minded  and  able 
men  from  doing  the  work  of  their 
choice,  is  the  superior  opportunity  of 
money-making  in  other  directions.  That 
avails  too  often  to  win  born-writers 
away  from  letters,  and  to  keep  born- 
statesmen  out  of  politics,  and  born- 
preachers  out  of  the  pulpit.  To  most 
Americans  poverty  is  not  absolute  but 
relative  ;  not  a  matter  involving  the 
necessaries  and  reasonable  comforts  of 
life,  but  the  question  of  living  on  an 
equal  scale  of  luxury  with  one's  asso 
ciates.  Many  men  to  whom  high-think 
ing  might  have  been  possible,  have  suf 
fered  an  aversion  to  plain-living  to  turn 
their  intellectual  energies  into  more 
commonplace  channels.  Many  others, 
who  cared  little  for  luxuries  for  them 
selves,  have  drudged,  and  humbled  their 
talents,  to  procure  them  for  their  fami- 
241 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


lies.  It  was  said  not  long  ago  of  Bea- 
consfield,  in  contrasting  him  with  Salis 
bury,  that  "  He  possessed  nothing,  and 
he  did  not  want  to  possess  anything. 
He  never  really  owned  an  acre  of  land 
in  his  life,  and  if  he  had  just  enough 
money  for  current  expenses  he  was 
thankful  not  to  be  troubled  with  more." 

If  that  was  truly  his  disposition,  it  was 
a  superlatively  fortunate  endowment  for 
an  intellectual  man  who  had  no  mind  to 
do  what  was  contrary  to  his  inclina 
tions. 

Inclinations  of  so  high  an  order  that 
their  fulfilment  brings  contentment  and 
honor,  and  of  so  stanch  a  quality  that 
they  can  withstand  allurements  of 
wealth,  ease,  or  office  bought  at  any 
cost  of  independence,  are  so  essentially 
a  part  of  the  individual  who  possesses 
them,  that  they  may  be  accurately  and 
more  succinctly  defined  as  character. 
Men  who  have  such  inclinations  are  not 
common,  but  men  who  follow  them  out 
are  rare.  If  Mr.  Curtis  followed  his,  it 
was  up  the  hill  and  over  it.  He  even 
voluntarily  placed  between  himself  and 
242 


Inclinations  and  Character 

their  fulfilment  the  gratuitous  obstacle 
of  a  great  debt  for  which  he  was  neither 
in  law  nor  in  equity  responsible.  They 
led  him  away  from  allies  of  life-long  as 
sociation,  through  much  that  was  haz 
ardous,  and  much  that  was  disagreeable. 
He  followed  them  with  admirable  con 
stancy.  To  have  possessed  such  inclina 
tions  was  not  an  incident  but  an  achieve 
ment,  and  to  have  followed  them  out 
was  victory  —  a  victory  whose  richest 
fruit  was  that  it  gave  to  American  citi 
zenship  an  ideal  Independent. 

In  some  instances  lofty  inclinations 
develop  into  character  ;  in  others  they 
do  not.  So  common  among  men  is  the 
case  of  inclinations  that  seem  to  have 
no  practical  force,  that  a  contemporary 
observer  announces,  as  a  result  of  notice 
taken,  that  some  men  have  morals,  and 
others  principles.  Of  course,  it  happens 
occasionally  that  people  have  both,  as 
others  again  have  neither  ;  but,  accord- 

..      ,  .       Some  men 

mg  to  the  experience  of  the  observer  in  *«*/«« 
question,  such  cases  are  more  or  less  ex-  others* 
ceptional.     He  cites  instances  of  politi-  ™orals- 


243 


; 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


cians,  the  most  scrupulous  in  their  pri 
vate  practices,  and  most  unprincipled  in 
their  political  acts,  and  contrasts  them 
with  other  politicians  of  the  severest  po 
litical  morality,  but  not  immaculate  in 
all  their  personal  relations.  There  are 
so  many  cases  of  eminently  moral  men 
who  lacked  political  virtue,  and  so  many 
more  of  immoral  men  who  had  it,  that 
historical  research  can  easily  take  such 
a  turn  as  to  leave  the  seeker  wondering 
whether  there  is  not  something  about 
private  morality  which  is  incompatible 
with  successful  cultivation  of  state-craft. 
What  is  true  in  that  direction  is  that 
there  is  probably  something  about  ordi 
nary  domestic  felicity  which  is  hostile  to 
political  success,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  a  man  with  a  family  to  live  with, 
and  probably  to  support,  can  give  only  a 
divided  attention  to  politics,  and  politics 
is  a  game  which  demands  the  concentra 
tion  of  the  whole  man.  The  most  suc 
cessful  politicians  of  recent  times,  with 
some  exceptions,  have  been  bachelors, 
childless  married  men,  and  husbands 
whose  homes  were  not  happy.  Celibacy 
244 


Inclinations  and  Character 

is  at  least  as  desirable  in  a  politician  as 
in  a  priest,  the  main  difference  being 
that,  whereas  it  is  useful  to  a  priest  as 
long  as  he  is  a  priest,  there  may  come  to 
a  politician  a  time  when  the  storm  and 
stress  period  of  his  career  is  so  distinct 
ly  over,  that  he  might  as  well  get  mar 
ried  as  not. 

Apart  from  politics  and  its  professors, 
there  are  several  reasons  why  principles 
are  more  apt  to  appear  as  a  substitute 
for  morals  than  to  accompany  them. 
For  one,  a  man  whose  daily  walk  is  dis 
creet,  and  who  behaves  wisely  and  knows 
it,  acquires  confidence  in  his  instincts, 
and  is  reasonably  well  satisfied  that  he 
does  about  the  right  thing,  and  that  his 
conduct  in  future  is  likely  to  be  as  cor 
rect  as  it  has  been  in  the  past.  A  prin 
ciple  is  a  fixed  opinion,  but  your  moral 
man,  who  has  confidence  in  his  habits, 
is  apt  to  be  guided  very  much  more  by 
them  than  by  his  opinions.  A  conse 
quence  of  which  often  is,  that  his  habits 
gain  in  strength  until  they  get  undesir 
ably  powerful,  and  his  opinions  grow 
vague  for  lack  of  practical  demonstra- 

245 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


tion.  The  more  fixed  his  moral  habits 
become,  the  more  instinctive  grows  his 
behavior,  and  the  less  occasion  he  has 
to  reason  as  to  what  is  right  or  wrong, 
or  to  develop  opinions  into  principles. 

But  with  the  man  of  no  morals  it  is 
very  different.  Realizing  his  large  po 
tentiality  for  loose  behavior,  recogniz 
ing  the  unreliability  of  his  instincts,  and 
knowing  that  such  habits  as  he  has  are 
mostly  bad,  he  feels  the  uncertainties  of 
his  anchorages,  and  the  great  need  of 
having  something  sure  to  tie  to.  What 
ever  worse  things  he  may  do,  he  deter 
mines  that  at  least  he  will  approve  the 
better.  A  sinner  he  may  be,  but  not  an 
unprincipled  sinner.  He  will  know  right 
from  wrong  anyhow,  whether  he  acts 
upon  what  he  knows  or  not.  Prompted 
by  such  necessities,  he  pays  attention  to 
his  opinions,  taking  care  to  hold  those 
most  approved,  to  hold  them  continu 
ously,  and  to  support  them  by  the  best 
arguments  obtainable.  The  fact  that  he 
does  not  permit  his  behavior  to  affect 
his  principles,  or  vice  versa,  frees  him 
from  many  embarrassments  that  would 
246 


Inclinations  and  Character 

be  incident  to  a  different  system.  The 
consequence  is  that  his  principles  in 
crease  in  height  and  splendor,  until  the 
man  of  mere  morals,  hearing  him  hold 
forth,  feels  his  knees  knock  together  at 
the  thought  of  his  own  inferiority. 

If  anyone  doubts  that  it  works  this 
way,  a  convincing  illustration  is  found 
in  a  general  comparison  of  men  with 
women.  Women  are  absurdly  superior 
to  men  in  their  morals,  but  only  an  ad 
venturous  disputant  would  deny  that 
men  have  stricter  and  more  definite 
principles. 


247 


XVII 

A    POET    AND    NOT 
ASHAMED 


A  POET  AND   NOT 
ASHAMED. 

|NE  characteristic  of  Tenny 
son  that  looms  up  large  in 
the  figure  of  him  that  is  left 
to  us,  was  his  ability  to  take 
himself  seriously  as  a  poet 
Since  his  death  a  story  has  been  in  cir 
culation  about  the  experience  of  a  cer 
tain  exceptionally  favored  young  wom 
an,  who  went  off  on  a  yachting  trip  with 
a  small  party  of  which  Lord  Tennyson 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  were  members.  She 
said,  or  at  least  the  newspapers  reported  _ 

r    1  Lord  Ten- 

ner  as  saying,  that  though  the  trip  was  nyson  did 
delightful  it  was  not  entirely  free  from  Teingapoe 
friction,  arising    from   Mr.    Gladstone's 
propensity  to  talk  in  moments  in  which 
Lord  Tennyson  wished  to  recite  verses. 
Indeed,  the  lady  intimated  that  the  solid 
day  did  not  seem  to  Mr.  Gladstone  too 
long  for  him  to  talk  through,  or  offer  to 

251 


Windfalls,  of  Observation 


Lord  Tennyson  an  unreasonably  pro 
tracted  space  for  the  recitation  of  his 
own  poems,  and  that  it  sometimes  hap 
pened  that  the  decks  of  the  yacht  were 
cleared  of  all  the  passengers  except  two, 
the  old  statesman  at  one  extremity  lost 
in  an  impassioned  monologue  of  discus 
sion,  and  the  venerable  bard  rehearsing 
Tennysonian  poetry  at  the  other. 

This  may  not  be  a  true  story  at  all, 
and  very  likely  it  is  exaggerated  even  if 
there  are  facts  to  it,  but  whether  fact  or 
fiction  it  illustrates  well-known  charac 
teristics  of  the  two  masters  that  it  con 
cerns.  Tennyson  never  doubted  that 
his  verse  was  worth  imparting.  Words 
worth  believed  implicitly  in  himself  as 
the  greatest  poet  of  his  day,  and  sus 
pected  that  his  day  was  the  golden  age 
of  all  poetry.  His  public  disputed  his 
opinion  for  many  years,  but  finally  came 
two-thirds  of  the  way  over  to  his  way  of 
thinking.  Tennyson  also  made  up  his 
mind  pretty  early  in  life  that  he  was  a 
poet  and  a  great  one.  The  evidence  he 
submitted  in  support  of  that  conclusion 
was  less  conflicting  than  Wordsworth's, 
252 


A  Poet  and  Not  Ashamed 

and  the  public  was  quicker  in  conceding 
that  he  was  right.  And  having  demon 
strated  that  he  was  a  poet,  and  chosen 
poetry  for  his  vocation,  he  revered  his 
office  and  stuck  to  it.  He  took  his  work 
seriously,  and  himself  seriously  as  the 
man  to  whom  it  was  appointed  to  do  the 
work.  Always  and  everywhere  where 
he  went  as  a  man,  he  went  as  a  poet  too. 
He  must  have  been  a  poet  even  to  his 
valet.  To  him  there  was  nothing  more 
absurd  in  the  figure  of  himself  in  a  cloak 
and  a  slouch  hat  reciting  his  own  verses 
on  the  deck  of  a  yacht  than  there  is  in 
the  presence  of  an  archbishop  in  full 
canonicals  doing  his  office  in  the  chan 
cel  of  St.  Paul's.  That  a  poet  should 
be  picturesque  and  poetical  seemed  no 
more  a  thing  to  smile  at  than  kingliness 
in  a  king. 

And  the  beauty  of  it  was  that  he  was 
right.  By  magnifying  his  office  he  dig 
nified  it,  and  gained  dignity  for  himself 
as  its  fit  administrator.  His  safety  lay 
in  his  possession  of  the  inestimable 
treasure  of  simplicity.  He  did  not  as 
sume,  he  developed.  He  did  not  pose, 

253 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


he  simply  behaved  as  he  felt.  His  ideals 
were  lofty,  his  thoughts  were  trained  to 
clothe  themselves  in  poetical  images, 
and  his  conduct  and  bearing  were  sim 
ply  the  shadow  of  the  inner  substance. 
Neither  were  absolutely  contemporane 
ous,  but  much  about  both  had  the  im 
perishable  quality  which  is  never  in  the 
fashion  and  happily  never  out  of  it. 

In  this  land  and  in  these  days  we  are 
apt  to  giggle  at  great  offices.  To  our 
eyes  the  divinity  that  doth  hedge  a  king 
appears  full  of  holes.  Wigs  and  laced- 
coats  and  high-heeled  boots  possess  no 
illusions  for  us  any  longer,  and  perhaps 
we  are  somewhat  too  prone  to  extend 
our  humorous  disregard  for  such  dis 
carded  trappings  to  the  substantial  su 
periority  they  were  once  designed  to  fit. 
We  are  so  ready  to  make  game  of  the 
poetical  aspirations  of  poets  generally, 
that  ours  are  apt  to  choose  to  be  before 
hand  with  us,  and  extenuate  the  possi 
ble  absurdity  of  their  own  aspirations  by 
smiling  deprecations  before  and  after. 
Now  that  Walt  Whitman  is  dead,  no 
American  would  dare  look  and  act  like 

254 


A  Poet  and  Not  Ashamed 

a  poet  even  if  he  felt  or  wrote  like  one. 
Our  poets  are  somewhat  too  apt  to 
be  spruce  gentlemen  in  patent  -  leather 
shoes,  who  make  verses  in  such  odd 
hours  as  they  can  spare  from  the  serious 
concerns  of  life.  And  one  cause  of  their 
being  so  is  the  reiterated  suggestion  of 
a  stiff-necked  generation,  that  a  sincere 
poet  who  believes  in  his  office  and  lives 
up  to  it  is  a  more  or  less  absurd  creat 
ure,  who  owes  us  all  an  apology  for  not 
doing  something  more  lucrative  and 
really  useful.  We  have  talked  that  way 
about  poets  so  long  that  it  looks  a  lit 
tle  as  though  ours  had  finally  come  to 
believe  us,  and  put  their  best  energies 
into  other  work.  It  might  be  better  for 
them,  and  for  us  too,  if  they  would  shut 
their  eyes  to  our  quirks  and  giggles,  and 
pattern  a  little  more  after  Tennyson, 
who  chose  to  be  a  poet,  and  was  that 
and  nothing  else,  all  his  life,  and  with 
out  evasion,  apology,  or  remorse. 

But  if  the  irreverent  American  humor 
has  not  developed  without  some  corrup 
tion  of  precious  ideals,  it  has  much  to 

255 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


offer  in  extenuation  of  itself  in  the  shape 
One  good      °f  smashed  idols  with  clay  feet,  whose 
'TmeriTan     use^ulness,   ^   they   ever    had    any,   was 
irrevere,ice.  long  since  past.     One  such  fetish  that, 
so  far  as  this  country  is  concerned,  has 
had  the  foundations  laughed  quite  out 
from  under  it,  is  that  curious  device  for 
defeating  the  natural  superiority  of  mind 
over  matter,  which  was  known  as  "  the 
code."     To  be  sure,  "  the  code  "  got  its 
death-blow  as  an  American  institution 
as  long  ago  as  when  Aaron  Burr's  bullet 
put  a  nation  in  mourning.     It  has  never 
really  flourished  since   then,  though   it 
did  linger  on  fitfully  and  obscurely  until 
after  the    civil  war.     But   some    of  the 
manners  and  methods  that  were  origin 
ally  tributary  to  it  survived  it,  and  it 
has  been  left  to  this  generation  to  laugh 
them  little  by  little  into  contemptuous 
disuse.     Men  still  quarrel  and  still  ex- 
^eitedto      c^an§e  blows  in  anger,  but  not  only  the 
kiu^the      notion  that  differences  between  "gentle 
men  "  must  be  settled  on   the  field  of 
honor  has  clean  gone  out ;  but  behavior 
which   had    some    appearance    of   sense 
while  that  notion  still  held  has  finally 
256 


A  Poet  and  Not  Ashamed 

come  to  be  estimated  as  the  archaism 
that  it  is.  The  age  of  "  rotten  boroughs, 
knee-breeches,  hair-triggers,  and  port," 
has  not  only  past,  but  its  works  have  so 
far  followed  it  that  in  America  persons 
who  attempt  to  shape  their  conduct  by 
the  standards  of  that  age  merely  find 
that  an  amused  and  smiling  public  cred 
its  them  with  "  courtly  bar-room  man 
ners,"  and  sniggers  at  their  discomfiture. 
The  "  gentleman  "  who  has  done  another 
gentleman  an  injury  is  not  considered 
any  less  a  blackguard  because  he  offers 
his  victim  "  any  reparation  in  his  power." 
To  run  the  injured  man  through  the 
body,  or  perforate  his  vitals  with  lead, 
is  so  universally  understood  to  be  an  in 
different  justification  of  an  offence,  that 
a  culprit  who  goes  out  of  his  way  to  sug 
gest  it  in  any  overt  dispute  finds  himself 
most  uncomfortably  in  contempt  of  pub 
lic  opinion.  So  the  public  insult,  which 
would  once  have  had  to  be  expunged 
with  blood,  has  relapsed  from  its  high 
estate  of  being  a  gentlemanly  act  into  a 
mere  loaferish  breach  of  the  peace,  to 
be  settled  for  in  a  police  court. 

257 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


The  fatal  defect  in  these  discarded 
standards  was  that  they  were  not  demo 
cratic.  They  never  promoted,  or  were 
intended  to  promote,  the  greatest  good 
of  the  greatest  number,  but  merely  con 
tributed  to  the  exaltation  of  the  few 
who  aspired  to  be  superior  to  rules  that 
might  be  fit  for  the  vulgar.  Now  and 
then  someone  stumbles  across  the  con 
temporary  stage  who,  from  living  too  ex 
clusively  in  some  narrow  club  circle  in 
Europe,  or  even  here,  has  failed  to  ap 
preciate  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  at 
tempts  in  some  juncture  to  shape  his 
conduct  according  to  the  notions  of  gen 
tlemanly  behavior  that  obtained  in  Lon 
don  clubs  as  late  as  the  days  of  George 
the  Fourth.  It  is  only  by  watching  the 
absurd  contortions  of  such  unfortunates 
that  we  are  able  to  realize  the  progress 
that  has  been  made.  Since  the  theory 
of  justification  by  combat  has  been  ex 
ploded,  there  seems  to  be  no  way  in 
which  a  gentleman  can  be  sure  of  keep 
ing  his  sacred  honor  free  from  specks 
except  by  plain,  ordinary,  decent  beha 
vior,  and  respect  for  the  rights  of  other 
258 


A  Poet  and  Not  Ashamed 

people.  If  he  does  wrong  he  cannot 
fight  his  way  right.  He  simply  has  to 
repent  and  apologize,  or  take  his  punish 
ment  quietly  according  to  the  rules  of 
the  game.  If  he  is  injured  and  the  law 
cannot  help  him,  the  best  way  for  him 
is  just  to  grin  and  bear  it,  and  let  time 
wreak  its  own  revenges.  To  be  sure,  if 
the  injury  is  desperate,  and  he  resents  it 
in  hot  blood,  the  law  may  excuse  him  ; 
but  society  has  come  to  a  point  of  so 
phistication  where  it  is  able  to  recog 
nize  that  a  man  who  endures  is  usually 
a  stronger  and  a  nobler  creature  than 
the  man  who  gives  reins  to  his  temper. 
The  notion  that  one's  "  honor  "  can  be 
damaged  by  the  action  of  another  per 
son  is  pretty  generally  obsolete.  Brag 
is  not  so  good  a  dog  as  he  was.  Bluff 
will  not  go  so  far.  The  code  that  reg 
ulates  in  these  days  the  manners  of 
the  highest  and  most  influential  type  of 
American  gentleman  is  actually  to  be 
found  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
Christian  standard  of  conduct  is  respect 
ed  consciously  or  unconsciously  in  the 
ciubs  as  well  as  in  the  churches.  To 

259 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


forgive  one's  enemies  (or  at  least  to  let 
them  alone),  and  to  do  as  one  would  be 
done  by,  have  always  been  good  sense, 
and  in  these  days  by  some  miracle  of 
grace  they  seem  to  be  getting  to  be  good 
form  too.  But  perhaps  we  ought  not  to 
wonder  at  it,  since  to  the  discriminating 
observer  the  other  way  is  so  hopelessly 
absurd,  and  this  age  of  publicity  is  nec 
essarily  an  age  of  critical  discrimination 
too. 


260 


XVIII 

SOME    CHRISTMAS 
SENTIMENTS 


SOME    CHRISTMAS 
SENTIMENTS 


is  traditionally 
such  a  poor  thing  compared 
with  giving,  that  there  is  a 
prevailing  tendency  to  take 
a  discouraged  view  of  it,  and 
not  to  make  a  proper  effort  to  make  of  it 
as  good  a  thing  as  possible.  It  is  capa-  The  right 
ble  of  development  into  a  very  pleasant  *%£?*£?£ 
accomplishment,  however  better  ones 
there  may  be  ;  and  this  much  may  be 
remembered  in  its  favor  to  start  with, 
that  it  is  the  complement  of  giving,  and 
an  indispensable  incident  thereto,  so 
that  if  we  were  wholly  out  of  patience 
with  it  on  its  own  account,  we  must  still, 
out  of  a  reasonable  regard  for  the 
golden  rule,  take  our  turn  at  it,  or  else 
forego  the  counter-practice.  It  would 
be  a  mean  person,  certainly,  who  should 
seek  to  gobble  up  all  the  blessings  that 

263 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


givers  enjoy,  and  dodge  all  the  pains  and 
difficulties  of  receivers. 

From  the  receiver's  stand-point  all 
gifts  may  be  divided  into  things  that  we 
want  and  things  that  we  don't  want.  It 
takes  no  particular  skill  or  grace  to  re 
ceive  things  that  we  want  ;  but  as,  in 
times  of  general  giving,  like  Christmas, 
•the  gifts  we  get  are  for  the  most  part 
things  that  we  don't  want,  that  branch 
•of  receivership  is  worth  attention.  The 
two  ordinary  reasons  for  not  wanting 
things  are  the  vulgar  one  that  they  do 
not  strike  us  as  intrinsically  desirable, 
and  the  more  complex  reason  that  we 
don't  want  to  receive  them  from  the 
particular  giver.  A  general  remedy  -ap 
plicable  to  reluctances  due  to  either  of 
these  causes  is,  to  keep  strenuously  in 
the  mind  the  happiness  of  the  giver  in 
giving.  Remembering  that,  you  are  de 
lighted  with  a  trifle  from  someone  you 
love,  because  it  makes  you  happy  to 
have  been  even  passively  instrumental 
in  procuring  him  the  happiness  of  giv 
ing  ;  applying  the  same  principle,  you 
can  accept  ever  so  costly  a  gift  from 
264 


Some  Christmas  Sentiments 

someone  for  whom  you  care  little  with 
out  any  irksome  sense  of  obligation, 
since,  of  course,  the  giver  had  the  best 
of  it  any  way,  and  it  is  a  great  deal 
kinder  and  more  generous  to  sacrifice 
one's  personal  inclinations  and  accept, 
than  to  refuse.  Remember  persistently 
that  by  receiving  with  due  grace  you  se 
cure  to  another  person  a  desirable  form 
of  happiness. 

The  very  essence  of  successful  receiv 
ing  is  to  rise  superior  to  the  sense  of 
obligation.  The  purpose  of  a  gift,  from 
the  giver's  point  of  view,  is  to  make  the 
receiver  happy.  But  obligations  are  apt 
to  be  irksome,  and  the  receiver  who  suf 
fers  one  to  weigh  on  him,  meanly  per 
mits  the  giver's  intentions  to  be  frus 
trated,  and  the  whole  value  of  the  trans 
action  to  be  destroyed.  Appreciation  is 
what  is  wanted.  To  appreciate  is  a 
generous  emotion,  pleasurable  to  the  re 
ceiver  who  can  experience  it,  and  highly 
agreeable  to  the  giver.  Both  are  blessed 
by  it,  and  mutual  love  is  quickened. 
Contrariwise,  over  obligations  there  is 
the  trail  of  the  serpent.  Once  recog- 

265 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


nized  they  have  to  be  paid  off,  and  when 
recompense  comes  in,  gift  degenerates 
into  mere  barter,  and  the  true  spirit  of 
giving  exhales  and  disappears.  Receiv 
ership  that  yields  to  the  impulse  to  give 
something  back  is  clumsy  and  inapt. 
Giving  back  is  mere  retaliation.  If  it 
is  revengeful,  it  is  neither  pious  nor 
philosophical,  and  the  wise  receiver  will 
have  none  of  it.  But  oftentimes  it  is 
merely  the  refuge  of  the  inexperienced. 
A  receiver  who  knows  his  business  will 
no  more  resort  to  it  than  an  expert 
horseman  will  hold  on  to  the  pommel 
of  his  saddle.  The  way  to  receive  is  to 
receive,  not  to  retaliate. 

To  receive  trifles  from  the  rich  and 
be  charmed  with  them  is  a  simple  mat 
ter.  To  receive  gifts  of  value  from  the 
poor  and  not  be  oppressed  is  a  finer  art, 
but  on  no  account  to  be  neglected.  If 
Dives  gives  you  a  paper  cracker,  be  as 
charmed  with  it  as  if  it  came  from  Laz 
arus  ;  but  on  no  account  fail,  if  Lazarus 
gives  you  an  heirloom,  to  receive  it  with 
as  much  gayety  and  as  little  remorse  as 
if  it  came  from  Dives,  and  you  knew  he 
266 


Some  Christmas  Sentiments 

would  not  miss  it.  Nevertheless,  don't 
feel  obliged  in  your  heart  to  undervalue 
Lazarus's  heirloom,  but  be  happy  rather 
that  Lazarus  has  had  feelings  toward 
you  that  have  demanded  so  notable  an 
expression. 

After  all,  little  children  do  it  best. 
They  are  the  superlative  receivers,  and 
it  is  because  they  are  that  we  delight 
to  give  them  things.  They  are  frankly 
and  delightfully  appreciative.  Obliga 
tions  sit  as  lightly  on  them  as  air.  They 
value  their  gifts  simply  by  the  pleas 
ure  they  get  out  of  them,  and  prefer  a 
rag-baby  to  the  deed  of  a  brick  house. 
They  take  a  jumping-jack  from  Mary, 
the  laundress,  and  a  jewelled  pin  from 
Aunt  Melinda  Crcesus,  without  the  least 
distinction  of  happy  approval.  The 
nearer  we  get  to  their  guilelessness,  the 
nearer  we  approach  perfection  in  receiv 
ing,  and  in  all  the  Christmas  attributes 
besides. 

What  Christendom  wants  at  Christmas 
time  is  simply  to  be  happy.    It  wants  the 
same  thing  all  the  rest  of  the  year,  but 
267 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


when  Christmas  comes  its  habit  is  to 
make  a  special  effort  and  gather,  if  it 
can,  a  special  harvest  of  happiness  from 
the  plantings  of  the  year.  And  where 
it  is  not  used  to  being  happy  and  does 
not  really  know  how,  it  shows  a  pathetic 
willingness  to  learn,  and  even  to  assume 
an  appearance  of  gayety  that  it  does  not 
really  feel.  Honest  effort  counts  for  a 
good  deal  in  any  pursuit,  and  where 
millions  of  people  try  to  be  happy  and 
to  furnish  merriment  for  one  another,' a 
very  considerable  proportion  meet  with 
reasonable  success.  But  in  everything 
where  there  is  a  possibility  of  success 
there  is  also  a  hazard  of  failure,  and  it 

The  quest 

after  haj>pi-  is  no  disparagement  of  a  virtuous  pur 
pose  to  have  a  merry  Christmas,  to  re 
member  that  effort  which  is  misdirected, 
or  attempts  the  impossible,  or  fails  for 
any  other  reason,  increases  the  bitter 
ness  of  the  resulting  disappointment. 
Some  good  people  will  not  have  the 
heart  to  attempt  any  Christmas  fun,  or 
will  fail  in  it  in  spite  of  all  they  can  do. 
It  is  especially  for  their  consideration 
that  these  remarks  are  intended. 
268 


Some  Christmas  Sentiments 

There  was  a  person  once — I  dare  say 
it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  there 
were  a  million  people  at  various  times — 
who,  having  sought  after  happiness  with 
earnest  and  protracted  strivings,  finally 
gave  up  the  quest  and  went  about  his 
other  business.  His  conclusion,  slowly 
and  automatically  derived  from  long  pe 
riods  of  longing  and  resulting  depres 
sion,  was  that  he  could  not  get  in  this 
world  what  seemed  indispensable  to  his 
satisfaction,  and  that  while  it  was  within 
his  powers  to  live  decently  and  maintain 
an  honest  walk  and  conversation,  happy 
he  could  never  be,  and  it  would  not  pay 
him  to  try  any  more.  So  he  settled 
down  with  the  feelings  of  one  who  has 
been  unjustly  deprived  of  his  own,  to  go 
through  the  motions  of  living  without 
regard  to  whether  he  liked  it  or  not. 
But  his  mind,  continuing  to  operate 
more  or  less  independently,  presently 
evolved  the  reflection  that,  while  it  was 
incumbent  on  every  man  to  live  his  life 
and  to  live  it  as  handsomely  as  he  knew 
how,  he  was  under  no  sort  of  obligation 
to  enjoy  it,  since  happiness  was  a  mere 

269 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


incident  of  mundane  existence,  and  not 
at  all  a  necessary  condition  or  an  abso 
lute  right.  Now,  merely  to  live  decently 
whether  you  like  it  or  not,  is  like  walk 
ing  along  the  street  with  your  hands  in 
your  pockets  ;  whereas  to  feel  obliged 
to  gather  a  complete  outfit  of  happiness 
that  you  cannot  reach,  is  like  running 
your  legs  off  after  an  elusive  butterfly. 
So  great  was  this  person's  relief  at  the 
conclusion  that  happiness  was  not  nec 
essary,  and  that  as  a  human  being  he 
was  under  no  ethical  bonds  to  secure  it, 
that  a  weight  left  his  mind  and  his  spir 
its  presently  began  to  rise  ;  and  though 
now  and  then  he  would  lose  his  head 
and  rush  off  after  an  impossible  felicity, 
like  a  half-broken  puppy  who  flushes  an 
unexpected  bird,  when  circumstances 
had  duly  thrashed  him  back  into  good 
behavior,  he  was  able  to  return,  not  to 
his  original  gloom,  but  to  the  compara 
tive  cheerfulness  of  the  emancipated 
state. 

It  makes  a  great  difference  in  one's 
feelings  about  happiness  whether  he  ac 
customs  himself  to  regard  it  as  a  luxury, 
270 


Some  Christmas  Sentiments 

like  a  million  dollars  or  a  yacht,  which 
some  men  have  and  more  don't  ;  or  as 
a  comparatively  indispensable  endow 
ment,  such  as  a  nose,  which  it  is  a  sort 
of  reproach  to  a  man  to  be  without. 
The  instinctive  appetite  for  it  is,  like 
hunger  and  thirst,  a  wise  provision  of 
nature,  and  designed  to  incite  a  salutary 
degree  of  effort  ;  but  it  is  quite  as  capa 
ble  of  abuse  as  the  other  appetites,  and 
needs  the  same  sort  of  control  ;  so  that 
whoever  feels  that  he  must  have  so 
much  happiness  every  day,  whatever 
happens,  has  reached  a  point  where  a 
period  of  total  abstention  is  likely  to  do 
him  good. 

There  are  some  stars  that  we  cannot 
see  at  all  when  we  look  straight  at  them, 
but  which  become  visible  when  we  look 
a  little  to  one  side.  So  there  are  things 
that  we  cannot  get  when  we  try  directly 
for  them,  but  which  presently  fall  into 
our  laps  if  only  we  try  hard  enough  after 
something  else.  Everybody  knows  it 
is  that  way  with  happiness.  Make  it  a 
primary  object  and  it  leads  you  a  doubt 
ful  chase  ;  but  ignore  it  in  the  rational 
271 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


pursuit  of  something  else,  and  presently 
you  may  find  it  has  perched  unnoticed 
on  your  shoulder,  like  a  bird  whose  tail 
has  felt  the  traditional  influence  of  salt. 
So,  of  course,  the  very  first  essential  to 
the  achievement  of  happiness  of  any 
durable  sort  is  to  rise  above  the  neces 
sity  of  being  happy  at  all.  It  may  be 
conducive  to  this  sort  of  achievement  to 
remember  that  great  spirits  in  all  times 
have  found  in  their  own  involuntary  dis 
content  a  spur  to  exalted  endeavor.  Co 
lumbus  had  low  spirits.  Socrates  and 
the  judicious  Hooker  had  Xantippes. 
Neither  Lincoln,  nor  Balzac,  nor  Carlyle 
were  happy  men,  but  they  put  saddle 
and  bridle  on  their  own  depression,  and 
rode  it  under  whip  and  spur  into  im 
mortality. 

But  let  nothing  herein  set  forth  in 
duce  any  person  to  trifle  with  or  under 
value  any  present  happiness  of  which  he 
may  already  hold  the  fee.  It  is  very 
pleasant  to  have,  and  often  very  whole 
some,  and  as  long  as  it  can  be  kept  pure 
and  sweet  it  is  a  lamentable  blunder 
not  to  cherish  it.  Nor  should  anything 
272 


Some  Christmas  Sentiments 

herein  dissuade  anyone  from  making  a 
special  effort  after  a  particular  lot  of 
Christmas  happiness.  Only,  worthy  peo 
ple  who  do  make  that  effort  are  coun 
selled  to  aim  a  little  to  one  side  of  the 
mark,  that  their  chance  of  a  bull's-eye 
may  be  the  greater.  And  the  practical 
application  of  that  advice,  as  everybody 
knows,  is  just  to  aim  to  make  the  other 
people  happy,  and  trust  to  getting  a 
share  incidentally  for  one's  self. 


273 


XIX 

FEATHERS    OF    LOST 
BIRDS 


FEATHERS  OF  LOST 
BIRDS 

IPROPOS  of  successful 
achievement,  it  has  been 
said  that  those  who  succeed 
are  those  who  go  on  after 
they  are  tired.  The  obser 
vation  bears  a  family  likeness  to  the  one 
about  genius  being  the  capacity  for  tak 
ing  infinite  pains,  and  both  amount  sim 
ply  to  this,  that  the  people  who  arrive 
are  those  who  don't  have  to  stop  until 
they  get  there.  To  many  of  us  it  hap 
pens  that  there  are  bits  of  thought — 
sometimes  they  are  bits  of  verse — that 
come  into  the  mind  when  it  is  too  tired 
to  follow  them  up.  It  can  just  grasp 
them  and  go  no  farther.  Such  waifs  are 
like  the  feathers  that  enthusiastic  little 
boys  who  chase  chickens  on  the  farm 
find  in  their  hands  when  the  bird  that 
they  have  almost  run  down  gets  away. 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


Cuvier,  they  say,  could  construct  a  whole 
skeleton  from  a  single  bone  ;  but  it  isn't 
told  even  of  him  that  he  could  fix  up  a 
whole  chicken  from  a  few  tail-feathers. 
Nevertheless,  these  intellectual  relics 
are  not  to  be  wholly  despised.  Feathers 
that  do  not  assume  to  be  complete  birds 
may  still  have  a  secondary  sort  of  merit 
as  feathers. 

An  odd  lot  of  such  strays,  that  turned 
up  the  other  day  in  the  corner  of  a 
drawer,  included  some  pennce  that  in 
hands  entirely  great  might  have  come  to 
something.  One  that  seems  to  have 
been  begotten  of  an  inquiry  into  the 
grounds  of  contemporary  renown  makes 
such  an  appearance  as  this  : 

So  mixed  it  is,  a  body  hardly  knows 
If  fame  is  manufactured  goods,  or  grows. 
Douce  man  is  he  whose  sense  the  point  imparts 
Where  advertising  ends  and  glory  starts. 

Another  grasp  of  plumage,  gleaned,  it 
would  seem,  in  another  chase  after  this 
same  bird,  disclosed  this  : 

And  here  the  difference  lies,  in  that,  whereas 

What  a  man  did  was  measure  of  his  glory 

278 


Feathers  of  Lost  Birds 


In  those  gone  days,  now  gauged  by  what  he  has 
He  reads  his  title  clear  to  rank  in  story. 

The  patriot  lives,  obscure,  without  alarms  ; 

The  poet,  critics  tell  us,  smoothly  twaddles. 
The  patent-tonic  man  it  is  who  storms 

The   heights  of   noise,  and   fame's   high   rafter 

straddles  ! 
Soap  is  the  stuff — 

With  the  rest  of  that  last  broken 
feather  the  bird  in  the  hand  became  the 
bird  in  the  bush.  In  the  next  lot : 

No  saint's  physiognomy  goes  to  my  soul 
Like   the   features    that    beam   from   that   brown 
aureole — 

suggests  a  quest  after  some  female 
bird  ;  and  this  also  seems  to  belong  to 
the  same  theme  : 

More  welcome  than  shade  on  a  hot  summer  day 
Is  the  shadow  she  casts  when  she's  coming  my 

way. 
You  can  see  she's  a  goddess  !     Just  look  at  her 

walk  ! 

I  own  I  adore  her  ;  there's  bones  in  her  talk  ! 
Defend  me  from  virgins  whose  talking  is  tattle, 
"Whose   ears  are  mere  trash-bins,  whose  tongues 

merely  rattle ; 

279 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


Whose  brains  are  but  mush,  and  their  judgment  a 

sieve — 

Invertebrate  discourse  is  all  they  can  give. 
What  profits  mere  beauty  where  intellect  fails  ? 
Oh,  give  me  the  woman  whose  mind  will   hold 

nails  ! 

That  was  quite  a  grasp  of  plumage,  to 
be  sure. 

When  the  tennis-ball  skims  by  the  fault-finding  net 

is  an  odd  feather  from  some  fleet  male 
bird,  perhaps,  who  got  easily  away. 

Not  as  dry  as  vast  Sahara, 
Just  a  sand-bank  in  July, 

suggests  a  parched  throat,  and  seems 
masculine  too  ;  and  so  does  the  sudden 
terminal  curve  of 

One  cannot  be  a  dying  swan 
Offhand. 

It  seems  as  if  there  might  still  be  fun 

enough  in  some  of  the  birds  that  shed 

these  things  to  pay  for  another  chase, 

if   only  one   could   get   sight   of   them. 

280 


Feathers  of  Lost  Birds 


The  worst  of  these  fowl,  though,  is  that 
the  best  feathers  and  the  longest  legs 
seem  to  go  together.  It  takes  quick 
steps  and  a  power  of  endeavor  to  catch 
ostriches. 


281 


XX 
OUTRAGEOUS   FORTUNE 


OUTRAGEOUS  FORTUNE 

]Y  brother  Mundanus  and  I, 
having  baffled  for  the  mo 
ment  the  penury  that  habit 
ually  suppresses  our  noble 
rages,  dined  together  the 
other  night  at  Delmonico's.  After  we 
had  well  eaten  and  pretty  adequately 
drunken,  my  brother's  emotions  being 
stirred,  he  lifted  his  voice  in  reproachful 
protest  at  certain  untoward  flukes  of 
fortune  to  which  it  seemed  due  that  he 
and  I  had  been  barred  out  from  the  large 
possibilities  of  a  life  of  luxury  and  pos 
sible  pride,  and  restricted  to  the  more 
meagre  chances  of  laborious  virtue. 
There  was  our  grandfather,  that  thrifty 
and  sagacious  merchant,  whose  annual 
accumulations  were  of  such  a  satisfacto 
ry  size  for  so  many  successive  years.  If 
only  his  talent  for  investing  money  had 
equalled  his  ability  to  make  it,  what  an 


Windfalls  of  Observation 

edifying  variety  of  roses  would  have 
bordered  our  pathway  through  life. 
Drinking  with  decorous  respect  to  this 
gentleman's  memory,  my  brother  re 
called  an  incident,  to  us  the  most  pa 
thetic  in  our  grandfather's  career.  It 
happened  rather  more  than  sixty  years 
ago.  A  succession  of  prosperous  sea 
sons  had  swelled  his  bank  balance  to  un 
usual  proportions.  In  his  quest  for  an 
investment  he  learned  of  the  budding 
promise  of  a  Western  town  named  Chi 
cago.  His  mind  dwelt  upon  it  until  he 
finally  converted  fifty  thousand  dollars 
into  portable  assets  and  travelled  out 
to  look  at  the  ambitious  Western  place, 
determined,  if  he  liked  its  appearance, 
to  buy  himself  a  collection  of  its  cor- 

though  vic 
tims  of  a       ner  lots.     Alas  !    he  round  the  town  was 

series  of  ca-  j     ,  ,   ,  i  j       i 

lamitous      swampy,  and  he  caught  cold  there,  and 
mischances,  brought  his  assets  home  again,  and  pres 
ently  put   them  with  divers   others   in 
to  woollen  mills,  some  of  which  burned 
down,  and  others  after  a  time  hung  fire, 
and  were  sold  at  a  grievous  valuation  just 
before  the  war  broke  out  and  made  the 
everlasting  fortunes  of  their  purchasers. 
286 


Outrageous  Fortune 


At  this  harrowing  reminiscence  a  tear 
ran  down  my  brother's  nose  and  fell 
into  his  champagne  ;  but  restraining  his 
feelings,  he  went  on  to  recall  how  one  or 
two  decades  later,  our  father,  at  that 
time  a  vigilant  young  attorney  in  Go 
tham,  had  formed  a  favorable  opinion 
of  the  tract  known  as  Murray  Hill,  and, 
borrowing  a  convenient  sum  of  money, 
had  purchased  some  acres  of  land  in  it, 
intending  to  hold  them  for  future  possi 
bilities.  But  in  a  year  or  two,  having  a 
salutary  horror  of  debt,  he  took  counsel 
of  precaution,  and  sold  his  land  again 
and  bought  back  the  notes  he  had  given 
for  the  purchase  money.  Which  of  the 
contemporary  Crcesi  owned  the  lots  now 
my  brother  did  not  know,  nor  did  he 
care  to  learn. 

Coming  down  still  another  generation, 
my  brother  recalled  the  time  when,  not 
many  years  ago,  he  and  I  were  solicited 
to  share  the  ownership  and  fortunes  of 
a  journal  whose  infant  soul  was  just 
on  the  point  of  fluttering  into  life.  But, 
mindful  of  the  mortality  statistics  of  in 
fant  journals,  we  withheld  our  hands 
287 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


and  stayed  where  we  were.  Alas  again  ! 
That  infant  throve  prodigiously,  and 
now  its  erstwhile  anxious  owners  re 
joice  in  town  and  country  domiciles  and 
invigorate  their  energies  behind  fleet 
quadrupeds  on  the  Riverside  drive.  But 
my  brother  and  I  still  dwell  in  modest 
hired  tenements,  and  rely  upon  the 
street-cars  for  our  transportation. 

Seeing  that  these  reminiscences 
seemed  to  have  a  depressing  effect  upon 
my  brother's  spirits,  I  hastened  to  sug 
gest  to  him  such  consoling  considera 
tions  as  came  into  my  mind.  I  re 
minded  him,  in  the  first  place,  that 
inasmuch  as  we  and  our  fathers  had 
lived  in  times  of  prodigious  industrial 
development,  such  opportunities  as  we 
and  they  had  missed  had  been  the  com 
mon  lot  of  their  and  our  contempo 
raries,  and  it  was  the  exception  to  find 
a  man  born  to  fair  possibilities  in  life 
who  could  not  recur  in  his  family  annals 
to  just  such  chances  of  being  very  rich 
as  he  had  recalled.  I  told  him  of  the 
perennial  despondency  with  which  my 
friend  Robinson  looked  back  to  a  day 
288 


Outrageous  Fortune 


when  a  friend  of  his  had  come  to  him 
with  a  handful  of  Dhudeen  &  Popocata- 
petl  mining  stock  which  he  had  en 
treated  him  to  purchase  at  eight  dollars 
a  share.  But  Robinson  being  a  prudent 
man,  had  declined,  and  year  after  year 
since  then  had  watched  the  gradual  up 
rising  of  that  D.  &  P.  stock,  until  each 
of  those  eight-dollar  shares  was  now  rep 
resented  by  certificates  readily  market 
able  at  two  thousand  dollars. 

I  went  on  to  remind  him  that  if  our 
grandfather  had  bought  those  corner 
lots  in  Chicago,  our  family,  which  is 
large  and  not  of  an  especially  frugal 
temperament,  would  have  tried  very 
earnestly  to  live  up  to  the  possibilities 
of  life  which  such  a  purchase  would 
eventually  have  opened.  One  thing  I 
thought  worth  mentioning  was,  that  if 
our  father  had  inherited  such  a  great 
fortune  he  would  not  have  found  time 
to  raise  so  many  children,  and  my 
brother  and  I  might  never  have  been 
born,  or  might  have  died  in  infancy  from 
some  costly  foreign  fever.  I  reminded 
him,  too,  that  our  sisters  would  doubtless 
289 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


have  married  counts  or  possibly  spend 
thrift  dukes,  and  would  have  lived  abroad 
at  great  expense  to  the  estate,  and  our 
older  brother,  who  has  a  prejudice 
against  work  as  it  is,  would  undoubt 
edly  have  enjoyed  life  in  a  manner  that 
would  have  made  necessary  some  heavy 
mortgages  ;  so  that  it  was  easily  possi 
ble  that  we  would  have  found  ourselves, 
at  our  age,  no  richer  than  we  are  now, 
and  much  less  capable  both  of  earning  a 
living  and  of  living  on  such  incomes  as 
we  could  earn. 

My  brother  demurred  gently  at  my 
gloomy  estimate  of  the  demoralizing 
tendencies  of  wealth,  but  I  continued. 
I  admitted  that  if  our  father  had  held 
on  to  his  Murray  Hill  lots,  the  property 
might  have  lasted  our  time  ;  but  I  re 
minded  him  that  in  that  case  we  should 
now  have  been  middle-aged  men  who 
had  experienced  expensive  pleasures 
and  eaten  and  drunk  rather  too  much 
for  our  good  for  at  least  twenty  years. 
to  be  our-  Our  characters  would  have  been  feebler 
f°r  lack  of  most  of  the  effort  and  self- 
denial  we  have  practised  during  that 
290 


Outrageous  Fortune 


period  ;  the  money  we  had  spent  would 
be  gone,  and  we  would  have  detriment 
rather  than  benefit  to  show  for  it.  The 
pleasure  we  had  had,  being  past,  would 
be  of  no  value  to  us  at  all,  and  would 
impair  rather  than  increase  our  abilities 
to  enjoy  in  the  future.  A  continuance 
of  the  sort  of  life  we  had  been  leading 
would  not  be  affirmatively  pleasurable, 
but  merely  a  necessary  condition  of  tol 
erable  existence.  If  we  had  had  chil 
dren,  we  should  be  apprehensive  of  the 
effect  of  our  examples  on  their  welfare  ; 
but  the  chances  were  that  we  should  be 
childless  clubmen,  with  shining  scalps, 
and  just  beginning  to  be  disturbed  by 
ominous  twinges  in  our  great  toes. 

As  to  that  last  chance  my  brother 
had  alluded  to,  of  our  gaining  a  compe 
tence  by  our  own  sagacity  and  good 
luck,  that  seemed  to  me  to  offer  a  more 
reasonable  opening  for  regret.  Never 
theless  I  explained  to  him  that,  even  if 
we  had  been  in  easy  circumstances  for 
only  eight  or  nine  years,  we  should  not  ratktrtka& 
have  been  quite  the  same  men  that  we  "have  been^* 
were,  nor  would  our  possible  gains  have 
291 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


been  unattended  with  losses.  In  my 
own  case  I  was  sure,  for  example,  that 
a  lucky  stroke  ten  years  ago  would  have 
made  such  a  difference  in  my  associates 
that  I  never  should  have  fallen  in  with 
my  present  wife.  My  children,  in  con 
sequence,  if  I  had  had  any  children, 
would  have  had  different  colored  eyes 
and  hair,  and  would  have  been  different 
children  altogether.  I  could  not  think 
with  equanimity  of  myself  as  married  to 
a  person,  however  estimable,  who  is  to 
me  in  fact  an  entire  stranger ;  or  as  the 
father  of  a  young  brood  with  whom,  as 
things  have  gone,  I  have  no  acquain 
tance,  and  in  whom  I  take  only  a  remote 
and  dispassionate  interest.  The  man  I 
might  have  been,  I  said,  is  as  much  a 
stranger  to  me  as  the  Prince  of  Wales. 
The  man  I  am  —  that  I  have  worked 
over,  and  endured,  and  sat  up  nights 
with — is  inextricably  associated  with  my 
most  intimate  concerns.  For  better  or 
worse,  I  would  rather  go  on  with  him  as 
he  is  than  change  him  for  a  richer,  or 
even  a  better  man,  developed  on  differ 
ent  lines,  under  different  conditions,  and 
292 


Outrageous  Fortune 


living  with  a  wife  and  children  that  be 
long,  as  it  is,  to  somebody  else. 

"  As  for  you,"  I  continued,  "  not  be 
ing  married,  you  are  not  affected  by  all 
the  considerations  that  influence  me. 
But  if  you  had  made  a  lucky  hit  ten 
years  ago  you  probably  would  have  mar 
ried  ;  and  when  you  consider  the  vari 
ous  chances  of  matrimony,  including  the 
cost  of  children's  shoes  and  the  pro 
pensity  of  male  offspring  to  go  to  the 
dogs,  are  you  sure  that  you  would  dare 
to  shift  blindfold  out  of  the  shoes  you 
occupy  now  into  those  of  the  man  you 
might  have  been  if  you  had  had  better 
luck  ? " 

My  brother  sniffed  a  little,  but  very 
gently.  I  think  my  arguments  im 
pressed  him  somewhat ;  but  his  philoso 
phy  is  a  trifle  less  ascetic  than  mine,  and 
it  is  only  on  clearer  days  than  common 
that  he  can  fix  his  gaze  upon  the  prom 
ised  land  intensely  enough  to  drive  the 
flesh-pots  of  Egypt  out  of  his  head.  He 
may  still  be  mourning  in  his  heart  over 
those  corner  lots  in  Chicago.  I  don't 
know.  But  even  if  my  arguments  failed 

293 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


to  have  a  convincing  effect  upon  him, 
there  are  some  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  other  vainly  regretful  Americans 
with  whom  possibly  they  may  find  more 
favor. 


294 


XXI 

CERTAIN    INDIVIDUAL 
VIEWS  OF  MAJOR  BRACE 


CERTAIN    INDIVIDUAL 
VIEWS  OF  MAJOR  BRACE 

|F  there  is  a  thing  I  have  set 
my  heart  on,"  observed  Ma 
jor  Brace,  at  one  minute  be 
fore  cocktail  time  on  Satur 
day  afternoon,  "  it  is  that 
when  my  last  hour  begins  to  strike  I 
shall  have  a  comfortable  and  interest 
ing  departure.  Under  what  circum 
stances  a  man  shall  be  born  into  this 
world  of  doubtful  compensations,  it 
does  not  lie  with  him  to  determine. 
He  cannot  select  his  parents  or  his 
physician,  and  even  his  own  deport 
ment  is  a  thing  outside  of  his  volition. 
But  how  he  shall  be  married  and  how  he 
shall  die  are  matters  that  it  should  fall 
to  him  to  regulate.  A  man  ought  to  be 
married  cheerfully  and  in  good  company. 
However  he  may  feel  about  it  personal 
ly,  he  should  remember  that  marriage  is 
297 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


commended  by  the  church,  and  that  the 
state  makes  a  point  of  its  encourage 
ment.  Whatever  personal  misgivings  he 
may  have  about  it  he  should  put  aside 
when  it  comes  to  the  point,  and  adorn 
his  brow  (figuratively)  with  garlands  and 
throw  just  as  penetrating  a  glamour  of 
individual  cheerfulness  over  the  scene 
as  it  lies  in  his  power  to  diffuse.  A  man 
at  his  own  wedding  must  just  rub  out  of 
his  mind  those  texts  about  man  that  is 
born  of  woman  being  liable  to  discom 
forts  as  the  sparks  fly  upward,  and  as  to 
how  all  our  years  over  seventy  are  labor 
and  sorrow  and  don't  pay.  Nunc  biben- 
dum  and  pulsandum  tellus  are  the  right 
sentiments  for  him,  and  his  frame  of 
mind  should  correspond  with  them.  For 
it  is  his  duty  to  alleviate  the  terrors  of 
matrimony  and  so  to  conduct  himself 
that  other  youths  taking  note  of  his  be 
havior  may  find  encouragement  therein. 
"  Now  the  terrors  of  death "  (one ! 

As  to  some  •»  «•         •     • 

possible  ter-    two  !  three  !  four  !  five  !  ping!       Martini 
3KJT         cocktail,  please  " )  "  are  not  to  be  com 
pared  with  those  of  matrimony,  and  it 
must  be   a  simpler   thing  to  die   hand- 
298 


Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace 

somely  than  to  be  creditably  married. 
Moreover,  though  men  may  need  encour 
agement  to  get  married  they  can  all  be 
trusted  to  die,  whether  anyone  shows 
them  how  or  not.  So  a  dying  man's  ex 
ample  is  not  so  important  a  matter,  and 
it  is  entirely  reasonable  for  him  to  hope 
that  in  the  arrangements  that  are  made 
for  him  to  expire,  his  own  personal 
comfort  may  be  the  first  consideration. 
I  suppose  we  have  all  figured  on  our 
last  feelings  and  our  last  words.  Of 
course,  if  a  man  falls  down  an  elevator 
shaft,  or  is  run  over  by  the  cars,  or 
dies  violently  or  in  severe  pain,  that 
spoils  it  all,  and  his  preliminary  ar 
rangements  are  so  much  wasted  time. 
But  if  he  dies  comfortably  in  bed  and  in 
good  spirits,  it  is  going  to  make  a  dif 
ference  to  him  who  is  there  to  see  him 
off.  Of  course  no  one  wants  hilarity  at 
such  a  time,  but  courage,  gumption,  and 
serenity  are  as  pleasant  at  life's  close  as 
at  any  point  in  its  duration.  The  great 
point  is  that  you  don't  want  a  lot  of 
people  around  that  you  have  got  to  en 
tertain.  When  you  cast  your  lingering 
299 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


look  behind,  you  want  to  see  only  such 
people  as  have  made  it  easier  for  you  to 
live,  and  not  too  many  of  them.  They 
are  the  sort  who  will  make  it  easier  for 
you  to  die.  You  don't  want  anyone  to  be 
pleased,  neither  would  you  have  anyone 
distressed.  Above  all  things  you  want 
to  be  quit  of  people  who  are  thinking 
too  much  about  their  own  behavior  to 
care  anything  about  yours  ;  of  people 
who  want  to  make  formal  remarks  suit 
able  to  the  occasion  ;  of  people  of  large 
experience,  which,  they  think,  qualifies 
them  to  be  professional  extinguishers  ; 
of  all  persons,  however  estimable,  whose 
presence  is  a  constraint  upon  you  ;  of 
people  who  want  to  repeat  their  favorite 
Bible  texts  to  you,  when  your  mind  is  al 
ready  running  on  your  own. 

"  For  myself  such  misgivings  as  I  may 
feel  about  the  nature  of  my  last  mo 
ments  are  largely  due  to  my  conviction 
that  when  my  aunt  Samantha  hears  that 
I  am  on  my  last  legs,  she  will  take  the 
first  train  for  my  bedroom.  And  from 
the  time  she  gets  there,  and  sits  down 
on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  all  the  comfort 
300 


Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace 

will  be  gone  out  of  the  proceedings. 
She  will  want  to  run  the  entire  show,  and 
she  will  run  it  as  if  it  were  a  dime  dis 
play  that  went  by  clock-work.  Saman- 
tha's  effect  on  humor  is  that  of  chloride 
of  lime  on  a  smell.  It  is  impossible  to 
talk  anything  but  commonplace  where 
she  is  in  earshot.  What  my  last  words 

will  be  if  she  is  there But  she  shan't 

be  there.  I  won't  tolerate  it.  If  she 
comes  I  shall  just  say,  '  Please  give  me 
those  trowsers.'  And  I  will  excuse  my 
self  and  come  down  and  die  at  the  club. 

"  I  think  that  I  could  get  along,"  con 
tinued  the  Major,  as  he  twirled  again  the 
protruding  tip  of  the  little  bell  on  the 
table  at  the  club,  "  if  it  were  not  for  the 
people  who  are  willing  to  forgive  my 
past.  They  are  an  unremittent  source 
of  worriment  to  me.  They  are  constant 
ly  at  work  undermining  the  standard 
of  worthlessness  that  I  have  set  for  my 
self,  and  loading  me  up  with  new  pur 
poses,  the  fulfilment  of  which  is  utterly 
beyond  any  possibility  that  I  contain. 
If  people — (Oh,  bring  me,  etc.) — if  peo- 
301 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


pie  only  had  gumption  enough  to  re 
member  that  a  man's  past  is  nine-tenths 
of  all  there  is  to  him,  and  that  to  for 
give  his  past  is  only  another  way  of 
knocking  him  on  the  head  and  prepar 
ing  his  remains  for  burial,  perhaps  some 
of  my  dear  friends  would  learn  to  have 
more  compunction  about  forgiving  me. 

"  I  resent  the  idea  that  because  I  spend 
only  a  couple  of  hours  a  day  in  an  office, 
and  get  up  late  mornings,  and  go  to  bed 
late  nights,  and  earn  no  money,  and  con 
sume  certain  judicious  quantities  of  alco 
hol  and  tobacco  every  day,  my  life  is  a 
failure,  my  habits  a  failure,  and  my  past 
a  thing  to  be  persistently  forgiven.  Why, 
bless  your  heart,  I  like  my  past.  If  it 
had  been  different,  these  simple  pleas 
ures  that  make  life  fairly  profitable  to 
me  would  fail  to  satisfy  me.  For  ex 
ample,  if  I  had  formed  habits  of  work  1 
should  be  a  slave  to  them,  like  all  the 
other  workers.  Work  gets  hold  of  men 
as  opium  does,  until  the  time  comes 
when  the  amount  they  must  take  every 
day  to  keep  them  reasonably  contented 
is  more  than  their  strength  can  stand. 
302 


Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace 

When  they  reach  that  point  they  drop. 
You  read  of  cases  of  it  every  day  ;  of 
men  upon  whom  this  fierce  work-habit 
grew  with  all  its  attendant  desires  and 
ambitions,  until  they  fell  in  their  tracks 
with  the  harness  on  them.  They  had 
no  particular  fun  ;  they  were  of  no  par 
ticular  use  to  their  friends  ;  they  were 
just  the  hired  men  of  society  whose 
business  it  was  to  earn  money  to  pay 
for  things  that  people  wanted  to  sell  to 
them.  As  long  as  they  were  short  of 
money  it  was  well  enough  for  them  to 
toil,  because,  you  know,  you  must  have 
some  money  in  this  world  if  you  are  to 
have  any  comfort.  But  when  once  their 
accumulations  were  adequate  to  support 
them,  their  past  became  a  hindrance 
and  a  burden  to  them — something  really 
fit  to  be  forgiven,  if  possible,  and  got 
rid  of  at  any  cost.  For,  you  see,  it  was 
simply  a  task-master,  forbidding  them 
to  stop  work  and  threatening  them  with 
misery,  and  even  a  premature  death,  if 
they  altered  their  habits. 

"Why,  such    a  past  as  mine — (Thank 
you  ;  put  it   there) — is   a   possession  of 

303 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


inestimable  value  to  a  man  who  can  af 
ford  it.  It  is  so  easy  to  live  up  to,  so 
patient,  so  forgiving,  so  encouraging, 
and  exacts  so  little.  A  man  who  has 
lived  at  high  pressure  must  go  at  high 
pressure  till  his  boiler  bursts,  but  we 
low-pressure  chaps  slide  along  year  after 
year,  burning  no  great  amount  of  fuel, 
not  hauling  many  cars  to  be  sure,  but 
running  so  smoothly  and  with  so  little 
fuss  that,  when  we  do  finally  bring  up, 
no  one  is  inconvenienced  and  we  hardly 
know  it  ourselves. 

"  It  is  a  fact  that  I  have  always  had 
serious  compunctions  about  doing  very 
much,  particularly  for  other  people,  for 
fear  of  the  monstrous  inconvenience  so 
ciety  in  general,  and  my  dependents  in 
particular,  might  be  put  to  when  I  died. 
You  know  how  it  is  ;  when  one  of  those 
hustling  gentlemen  who  habitually  crowd 
ten  days'  work  into  every  week  throws 
up  his  hand  there  is  a  wail  of  despair. 
All  his  womenfolks  are  disheartened, 
and  the  men  look  at  one  another  and 
groan  and  say  :  '  My  gracious  !  I  won 
der  who  is  going  to  take  up  Jones's 

3°4 


Individual  yiews  of  Major  Brace 

job  ! '  No  one  takes  any  comfort  at  his 
funeral.  The  mourners  are  ashamed 
of  him  for  letting  up,  and  twitch  their 
shoulders  nervously  in  dread  of  the 
weight  of  some  of  his  burdens.  It  is  a 
dreary  business  all  around. 

"  But  just  you  wait  and  see  what  a 
pleasant,  cheerful  episode  it  will  be 
when  I  go.  There  will  be — at  least  I 
hope  there  will — just  a  proper  amount 
of  we-could-have-better-spared-a-better- 
man  sort  of  regret.  Men  will  say  :  *  So 
Brace  is  gone.  What  a  worthless  old 
creature  he  was  ;  and  yet,  somehow,  he 
was  handy  to  have  about  ! '  A  good 
many  people  will  come  to  the  funeral,  I 
think,  partly  out  of  an  affectionate  habit 
and  partly  because  it  will  be  a  pleasant 
funeral  with  no  broken  hearts  in  it, 
and  no  horrid  incubus  of  responsibili 
ties  perched  up  on  the  coffin  and  peer 
ing  around  among  the  mourners  for  a 
pair  of  suitable  shoulders  to  shift  itself 
upon.  Nothing  but  my  past  enables  me 
to  look  forward  to  such  a  funeral  as 
that  ;  and  to  forgive  my  past,  you  see, 
is  simply  to  discredit  all  my  future.  I 

305 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


wish   people  might  not   forgive   it   any 
more. 

"  If   there   is   a   social   function   that 

Of  family  . 

1  despise  with  embittered  animosity, 
broke  out  the  Major  again  after  a  pause 
of  grumbling  meditation,  "  it  is  the  fam 
ily  party.  I  hate  it  not  less  for  what  it 
includes  than  for  what  it  leaves  out. 
It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  neither  con 
sanguinity  nor  ties  of  marriage  afford 
ground  for  the  imputation  of  congenial 
social  qualities.  That  I  should  feel  an 
interest  of  a  certain  sort  in  the  nephew 
of  the  aunt  of  my  wife,  or  the  sister-in- 
law  of  the  mother-in-law  of  my  stepson, 
may  be  reasonable.  I  am  ready  to  go 
bail  for  them  when  they  are  arrested  for 
crime,  to  be  a  witness  to  their  wills, 
and  possibly  to  go  on  their  bonds  in  a 
reasonable  amount  when  that  is  a  condi 
tion  precedent  to  their  profitable  em 
ployment.  But  why  I  should  be  huddled 
together  with  these  worthy  people  for 
purposes  of  festivity  I  fail  to  discern. 

"  I   have    been    to   a   wedding.      My 
cousin    Sally   got   married.      I    like   my 
306 


Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace 

cousin  Sally  a  good  deal,  and  I  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  fun  at  her  wed 
ding  ;  but — good  heavens  ! — my  cousin 
is  wearing  black  edges  on  her  writing- 
paper  this  spring,  and  it  was  held  that  it 
ought  to  be  a  private  wedding,  with  no 
one  but  the  family.  Sally  was  there  ; 
her  father  and  mother  ;  her  three  broth 
ers  and  their  wives  ;  the  bridegroom  ; 
his  father  and  mother  ;  his  grandmoth 
er  ;  his  three  sisters  and  the  husbands 
of  two  of  them  ;  the  brothers  of  the 
two  husbands  of  the  groom's  sisters  and 
their  wives  ;  the  parents-in-law  of  Sally's 
brothers  and  their  families ;  first  and 
second  cousins,  uncles,  aunts,  and  step- 
relatives  of  the  contracting  parties. 

"  Gracious  !  It  made  me  feel  as  if  I 
had  got  mixed  up  with  the  Mafia,  there 
was  such  a  dreadful  sense  of  conspiracy 
and  a  common,  dreadful  purpose  about. 
There  were  people  enough  of  merit 
there,  but  they  were  not  grouped  on  a 
fit  system.  Nobody's  crowd  was  com 
plete.  Everyone  who  had  friends  in  his 
society  gang  with  whom  he  liked  to  con 
sort  on  such  an  occasion  was  separated 

307 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


from  two-thirds  of  them,  and  had  rela 
tives  served  up  to  him  instead.  I  want 
ed  to  drink  champagne.  I  always  do  at 
weddings  when  I  have  any  feeling  for 
the  'parties/  but  the  gloom  was  so  deep 
on  me  that  I  dared  not  begin.  At  last 
I  got  Jack  Robinson  off  in  a  corner, 
away  from  everybody  that  we  were  re 
lated  to,  and  we  guzzled  monotonously 
and  without  enthusiasm  until  it  was  de 
cent  to  go  home.  I  tell  you,  family 
parties  are  a  baneful  business  ;  bad  for 
those  who  are  excluded  and  worse  for 
those  who  are  not.  I  cannot  think  of 
any  end  they  serve  which  is  important 
enough  to  warrant  them. 

"  I  heard  of  another  informal  wedding 
the  other  day.  The  bride  invited  a 
score  of  friends  to  dinner.  The  groom 
was  of  the  party,  so  was  the  clergyman, 
and  the  wedding  and  the  black  coffee 
came  about  the  same  time.  Now  that 
was  something  like. 

"  There  was   imparted  to   me   lately, 
of  gossip,   under    due    exactions   of   secrecy,"   the 
Major   went   on,   as   the    bell   quivered 
308 


Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace 

once  more  under  his  impetuous  finger, 
"  a  tremendous  story,  involving  facts 
bearing  in  a  highly  interesting  manner 
upon  the  moral  characters  of  sundry 
contemporaries.  I  rarely  know  any 
startling  gossip  except  what  I  am  able 
to  glean  from  the  newspapers,  and  I  was 
not  hunting  for  recondite  facts  of  a  per 
sonal  nature  when  the  tale  I  speak  of 
came  to  my  knowledge.  I  was  utterly 
flabbergasted  by  it.  Where  I  had  con 
jectured  my  informant  had  ascertained  ; 
but  her  certainty  far  outran  my  sus 
picions,  for  where  I  had  read  indiscretion 
her  knowledge  joined  to  mine  brought 
out  guilt  in  large  exclamatory  lettering. 
I  was  astonished  at  the  story,  and  I  have 
been  scarcely  less  astonished  at  its  ef 
fect  upon  my  inner  consciousness.  At 
first  it  filled  me  up  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  other  thought,  and  threatened  to  get 
itself  unreasonably  important  for  the 
reason  that  the  knowledge  of  it  left  me 
with  nothing  else  to  say.  Since  then 
there  has  been  some  natural  shrinkage 
in  it,  due  to  the  action  of  time  and  the 
impact  of  affairs,  and  with  careful  discre- 

309 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


tion  I  have  talked  scallops  out  all  around 
the  edge  of  it  (much  as  children  nibble 
around  a  flat  cake  of  maple  sugar),  leav 
ing  untouched  the  substantial  central 
tale  which  I  am  in  honor  bound  not  to 
reveal. 

"  The  reason  I  mention  it  here  is  not 
to  tantalize  any  one  with  the  shadow  of 
a  story  whose  substance  is  locked  up, 
but  for  the  sake  of  discussing  whether 
it  has  paid  me  to  know  this  story  at  all. 
There  have  been  inconveniences  about 
it,  the  wear  and  tear  of  keeping  it  to  my 
self,  and  the  disagreeable  variation  in 
my  sentiments  toward  some  of  the  per 
sons  whom  it  concerned.  It  did  not 
make  me  think  better  of  any  one  abso 
lutely,  though  my  estimates  of  one  or 
two  persons  relatively  to  one  another 
have  shifted.  I  find,  however,  that  I  am 
ahead  on  the  whole  transaction,  because, 
while  I  am  not  so  closely  attached  to 
the  victims  of  the  tale  as  to  be  distressed 
by  it,  it  comes  near  enough  to  me  to 
make  my  interest  in  it  very  lively  and 
exhilarating.  Without  the  least  desire 
to  judge  these  contemporaries,  I  find 
310 


Individual  Views  of  Major  Brace 

myself  in  a  slightly  better  position  to 
form  just  opinions  as  to  the  merits  or 
faults  of  their  future  behavior.  Knowl 
edge  is  power,  and  power  is  pleasant, 
even  though  it  is  limited  in  its  possibili 
ties  of  good.  I  have  not  yet  come  to 
the  point  where  I  would  unknow  that 
tremendous  story  if  I  could. 

"  Of  course,  if  I  could  undo  the  facts 
of  the  story  I  would  gladly  do  that. 
What  disappoints  me  is  the  apparent 
defect  in  my  benevolence,  which,  the 
facts  being  unalterable,  makes  me  prefer 
to  know  them,  though  apparently  they 
cannot  in  any  legitimate  fashion  promote 
my  happiness.  Can  I  console  myself 
with  the  pretence  that  I  love  truth  too 
much  to  part  with  such  a  piece  of  it? 
I  fear  not.  I  fear  that  the  love  of  truth 
has  little  to  do  with  the  case.  I  fear  I 
must  conclude  that  unregenerate  man 
takes  a  real  pleasure  in  being  fully 
abreast  of  the  times  in  the  knowledge  of 
his  neighbor's  misdeeds,  for  the  reason 
perhaps  (for  one  reason)  that  he  is  con 
tinually  comparing  himself  in  an  auto 
matic  sort  of  way  with  his  neighbors, 

311 


Windfalls  of  Observation 


and  information  that  makes  him  think 
worse  of  them  makes  him  think  better, 
by  contrast,  of  himself.  '  Certain  it  is/ 
as  Thackeray  assures  us,  *  that  scan 
dal  is  good  brisk  talk/  and  that  'an  ac 
quaintance  grilled,  scored,  devilled,  and 
served  with  mustard  and  cayenne  pepper 
excites  the  appetite/  Whether  it  is  also 
true,  as  he  goes  on  to  aver,  that  '  a  slice 
of  cold  friend,  with  currant  jelly,  is  but 
a  sickly,  unrelishing  meat/  is  another 
matter,  and  I  am  not  going  to  admit  it ; 
at  least  not  on  this  drink." 


312 


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